• The National Natural History Collections of the Hebrew University

    About

    The National Natural History Collections at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are the most extensive biological collections of the Middle East. 
    In addition to serving as a physical documentary of the regional natural history, the collections provide research material for studies in evolution, ecology, taxonomy, systematics, biodiversity, nature conservation, agriculture, wildlife forensics, history, and more. Read More

News & Research

Collecting samples

Do fishermen know fish? The research continues!

11 January, 2024

[Links to the article are attached below, plese click on this item to display the full content]

Revisiting the list of freshwater fish species of Israel – A new research, led by Dr. Roni Tadmor-Levi from the group of Prof. Lior David, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sheds new insights of what freshwater fish species make up the biodiverse aquatic fauna of Israel.

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Just discovered and already in danger - Research by Dr. Efrat Gavish-Regev

26 March, 2023

A new article reveals a species of spider discovered for the first time in the south of the Arabah by Dr. Efrat Gavish-Regev, director of the Arthropod Collection in the National Nature Collections at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Yael Lubin from Ben-Gurion University and their research teams.

The researchers noticed the special spider during arachnid monitoring they carried out, which was designed to estimate the damages caused by the oil spill disasters in the south of the Arabah in 1975 and 2014.

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Seven new species have been described from caves in Israel

6 February, 2023

In a new study, seven species new to science were discovered, distinct cave dwellers (troglobite), described from the depths of caves in the Mediterranean regions of Israel, two of which are completely blind, and another five are eye-degenerative.

 

One of the surprising findings in the study shows that the new species are evolutionarily closer to the species living in Southern Europe in Mediterranean areas, at the entrance to caves and outside the caves, than to the troglophile species that live in sympatry with them at the entrance to caves in Israel.

Fishes

The Great Invasion of the Mediterranean

6 February, 2022

Recently, a new article was published by Dr. Danny Golani, the curator of the fish collection at the Hebrew University's National Nature Collections - an up-to-date list of the fish species of the Mediterranean Sea of Israel. The list includes 469 fish species, an addition of 62 species since the previous list published in 2005. Most of the species added to the list - 38 of them - are immigrants (invaders) to the Sapsians (named after Ferdinand de Lesseps - thinker and initiator of the digging of the Suez Canal), which came from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.

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Dr. Golani speculates that the dramatic increase in the Lessepsian species - 2.5 species every year during the last 15 years - is probably due to the increase in water flow between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, following the recent opening of the new 72 km "parallel canal" and the expansion of other sections in the Suez Canal. In other works, many species of Sapsians that are not fish have also been described, such as the jellyfish from the wandering filamentous species.
In the photographs - two examples of species that migrate to the Mediterranean Sea:
The red fish are red bream (Sargocentron rubrum), photo: Prof. Maoz Payne. The brown fish are poisonous barbel (Plotosus lineatus) Photo: Motty Mendelson.
The article was published in the scientific journal Zootaxa and can be found at the following link on the publisher's website: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33903581/
To download the article as PDF at the link: https://www.biotaxa.org/Zoo.../article/view/zootaxa.4956.1.1
The research and the article were mentioned on the YNET news website in the environment and science section:
https://www.ynet.co.il/article/r1lZ1SuOO...

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spiders

Neither oil nor diesel - spiders prefer soil free from pollution

6 February, 2022

This week an article was published presenting the results of a study carried out by an international (five nationalities) and inter-university team, led by Dr. Efrat Gabish-Regev from the National Nature Collections, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Prof. Yael Lubin from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The article describes a new species of spider, known so far only from the Arava Valley - in Israel and Jordan:

Sahastata aravaensis sp. November Ganem, Magalhaes, Zonstein and Gavish-Regev

Our collection

Additional Units

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    Archives

    The historical archive - the national nature collections

    The historical archive - the national nature collections

    The National Nature Collections have a rich history. The collections were established at the beginning of the 20th century by the pioneers of nature research in the Land of Israel and the first researchers at the Hebrew University.

    Over the years, many materials of various kinds were collected alongside the items of the collections themselves - tour diaries, letters, photographs, illustrations, teaching materials and more. These materials illuminate the history of the study of nature in the country in the 20th century.

    The work on establishing a historical archive of the national natural collections began in January 2020. The collection of plants (the herbarium) was chosen to start the project because of the large scope of the historical materials in it. In the following years, the work will expand to handle the materials kept in the other collections.

    The materials in the collection touch on many fields: the history of the Hebrew University and science in the Zionist movement, environmental history (forestry, drying Lake Hula, nature conservation), history of Zionism and the Middle East, ethnobotany and more.

    Researchers interested in conducting research on the archive materials are invited to contact Dr. Naomi Yuval-Naeh, the curator of the archive. We will be happy to be in touch regarding possible collaborations.

    If you have historical materials relevant to the collection, please contact Tair Rochman, the manager of the archive.

    For more information regarding the herbarium archive, visit the herbarium archive page.

    You are invited to view scanned materials from the archive on the library authority website.

    The archive of the plant collection (the herbarium)

    You are invited to view scanned materials from the archive on the library authority website.

    The herbarium archive collection includes:

    1. Personal-research archives: Otto Warburg, Alexander Ig, Naomi Feinbrunn-Dotan, Michael Zahari, David Zaitschek, Hillel Oppenheimer, Clara Chen, among others.
    2. Historical documentation of the herbarium and the department of botany: notebooks (tour diaries, registration of the loan of herbarium sheets, Hebrew-Arabic place names and more), department meetings, reports, teaching materials, research materials.
    3. A collection of photographs and slides: Otto Warburg's materials from his journey in East Asia (late 19th century), photographs of the Department of Botany's tours in Israel and neighboring countries (1920s to 1950s).
    4. Flora Palestine: documentation of the "Flora Palestine" work process (1966-1986). Species lists, glosses, and botanical illustrations (drafts and final versions).
    5. Bequest of Alexander and Ita Ig: materials in the possession of the Ig family and donated by them. The estate contains many tour diaries from the Land of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Tunisia (20-30s), research materials, letters, photographs, and biographical material collected by the widow of Prof. Alexander Ig.

     

    The archive of the zoological collections

    Currently, a preliminary review of the materials of these collections has been made, and it is difficult to estimate their scope. The materials include letters, photographs, laboratory diaries and tours, scientific illustrations, teaching materials.

    Subjects of special interest: Hula Lake before drying (the fish collection), research tours (photographs and notebooks - from the 1920s).

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    Conservation

    Conservation activities in the collections

    Conservation activities in the collections include:

    (1) Preventive care that includes issues such as control of environmental conditions, optimal storage, ongoing maintenance and participation in the planning of designated spaces for collections.

    (2) Direct handling of the various collection items includes conservation work mainly in the paleontological, archaeozoological and zoological collections, but also in the other collections.

    (3) Research in the field of conservation for the development and improvement of methods for the conservation and treatment of nature collections.

    (4) Advice and training for applicants as well as for museums and small collections.

    As a result of these tasks, the collections shift accompanies excavation expeditions to handle findings in the field as well as goes on consulting visits and handling external collections.

    Ms. Gali Beiner (MA, ACR), serves as the National Natural Collections Supervisor at the Hebrew University full-time since 2009. Gali's work experience includes a wide variety of materials and exhibits, from places such as the Bristol City Museum of Art and Archaeology, the Liverpool Conservation Center, the Israel Museum, The Pitt Rivers Museum of Ethnography in Oxford, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Museum of the Biblical Lands in Jerusalem. Gali has a master's degree in conservation archeology from Durham University (England).

    The field of preservation is not the same as the field of preparation. Preparation in nature collections usually includes handling collected zoological specimens and putting them into collections in ways such as hatching and taxidermy, or preserving them in liquid. In the past, expeditions of collectors used to go out and hunt animals in order to increase nature collections. Nowadays, hunting for collection is not customary, but animals that have already died are collected - for example in car accidents. The National Nature Collections at the Hebrew University devote a lot of work to efforts to preserve nature and wildlife in Israel. As part of these efforts, we encourage people interested in fossils not to disconnect such finds from their natural context, but to contact the collections team in order to check and research interesting fossils observed in the field. By researching findings while fully recognizing the environment in which they were found, we can preserve nature and fossils in Israel and expand our knowledge about them.In some cases we will prefer to leave findings in place - and in other cases we will work to send out an expedition for the purpose of excavating and removing findings from the area as part of an organized study that takes into account all the information that can be extracted from the environmental context, taking into account questions such as whether the findings can be preserved while remaining in the field or whether it is better to remove them and preserve them in nature collections Nationals at the Hebrew University.

    פעילות שימור

    Several articles were published in the popular media telling about our activities outside the campus:

    https://youtu.be/A8G06IsH59A

    https://www.ynet.co.il/environment-science/article/SyXrViEYd

    https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/.premium-MAGAZINE-1.10106875?utm_source=Web_Share&utm_medium=Whatsapp&utm_campaign=Share

    Scientific publications:

    Beiner, G.G. Labels for eternity: testing printed labels for use in wet collections. Collection Forum 34(1):101-113 https://doi.org/10.14351/0831-4985-34.1.101.

    Rabinovich, R., Herzlinger, G., Calvo, R., Rivals, F., Mischke, S. and G. Beiner. Erq el Ahmar Elephant Site – A mammoth skeleton at a rare and controversial Plio-Pleistocene site along the mammal migration route out of Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews (2019) vol., 221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.105885

    Beiner, G.G., Lavi, M., Seri, H., Rossin, A., Lev, O., Gun, J., and R. Rabinovich. Oddy Tests: Adding the Analytical Dimension. Collections Forum (2015) vol. 29 no. 1-2, pp. 22-36.

    Beiner, G.G. and R. Rabinovich. Bones and sediments: part of a synergetic continuum. Journal of Paleontological Techniques (2014) vol. 13 19-28, http://www.jpaleontologicaltechniques.org/pasta3/JPT%20N13/pdf/JPT13_pg_19_28.pdf

    Beiner, G.G. and R. Rabinovich. An elephant task - conservation of elephant remains from Revadim Quarry, Israel. Journal of the Institute of Conservation (2013) vol. 36 no. 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19455224.2013.796887

    Bar Oz, G. Beiner and L. Horwitz, The excavation and conservation of animal bones from archaeological sites Chapter In press for Horowitz L. and G. Bar-Oz eds.

    Beiner, G. G. and R., Rabinovich. Natural History Conservation in Jerusalem. SPNHC Newsletter (2012) vol. 26(2) pp. 1-2 and 14.

    Beiner, G. Indian Mica Paintings. The Friends of the PRM Newsletter (2007) vol. 58 p. 7.

    Beiner, G. Mica Paintings Revisited. ICON News (2007) issue 9 pp. 25-28

    Beiner, G. and Ticca M.O Ogilvie. Thermal methods of pest eradication: their effect on museum objects, The Conservator (2006) vol. 29 pp. 5-18

Meet the researchers

Dr. Efrat Gabish Regev

Dr. Efrat Gavish Regev

14 February, 2022

 

Coordinator of the national nature collections and scientific director of the national collection of arachnids and other terrestrial arthropod collections at the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

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Dr. Eyal Ben-Hur

10 May, 2023

Scientific Director of the National Herbarium at the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

In the past I researched an experimental and theoretical examination of the influence of spatial mechanisms on species richness.

Currently researching the understanding of the mechanisms that influence global distribution patterns of plant forms.

My interest in the field of research is due to a basic curiosity to discover new things that meets an ever-increasing potential for extracting insights from big data analysis.

Dr. Naomi Yuval-Naeh

Dr. Naomi Yuval-Naeh

10 May, 2023

Historical curator of the plant collection, faculty member in the Department of History in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

One of my projects seeks to examine the relationship to nature in industrial society by focusing on the fuel that drove the industrial revolution - coal. I wish to examine how a material that was, and still is, the perfect antithesis to "natural" ideals, the banner of progress and technology, is perceived as deeply involved in the natural world.

Dany golani

Dr.Dani Golani

14 February, 2022

 

Scientific director of the fish collection at the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

My PhD dealt with the society of Mullidae (Goatfish) in the Mediterranean. I was also a research assistant to Prof. Adam Ben-Tovia and participated in a study on the fishing in Bardawil Lake in North Sinai.

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Collaborations

המרכז לחקר מערות ישראלהגן הבוטני של האוניברסיטה העברית בהר הצופים (huji.ac.il) הגן הבוטני האוניברסיטאי ירושלים (botanic.co.il) synthesys-plus-logo.png

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