Johann Zelebor, an Austrian naturalist, zoologist and illustrator, worked as a carpenter before 1845. Subsequently he became a taxidermist at the Naturalien-Cabinet in Vienna and was later promoted to adjunct curator. He was an expert on terrestrial and freshwater molluscs and published a paper entitled "Systematisches Verzeichniss der im Erzherzogthume Oesterreich bisher entdeckten Land- und Süswasser-Mollusken" (Systematic catalogue of the land and freshwater molluscs that have so far been discovered in the archdukedom Austria) in the Berichte über die Mittheilungen von Freunden der Naturwissenschaften in Wien (1851). This was followed by "Neue Landschnecken: Helix Schotti" (New land snails: Helix schotti) in the French journal Conchyliologie (1857).
Zelebor was employed as the naturalist of the Austrian Novara Expedition of 1857-1859. On the outward journey the frigate Novara remained at Simon's Town, Cape of Good Hope, from 23 September to 29 October 1857. During these few weeks Zelebor hired a local person to collect birds nests and eggs for him, in the first attempt to study these in South Africa. The results were described by August von Pelzeln* in Vögel (Vienna, 1865, 176pp), a publication that formed part of the multi-volume Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859... Zoologischer Theil. Zelebor himself described the mammals collected by the expedition in "Säugethiere" (44p), in one of the volumes of the same work. He also described the molluscs collected during the expedition in two papers: "Bericht über die von der Novara-Expedition mitgebrachten Mollusken" (with W. Dunker, Verhandlungen des Zoologisch-Botanischen Vereins in Wien, 1866) and "Bericht über einige von der Novara-Expedition mitgegrachte Landschnecken" (with Dr Pfeifer, Ibid, 1867).
