MSB Amphibian and Reptile Collection (Arctos)

Occurrence Specimen
Latest version published by Museum of Southwestern Biology on Oct 2, 2025 Museum of Southwestern Biology
Home:
http://msb.unm.edu/divisions/amphibians-reptiles/
Publication date:
2 October 2025
License:
CC-BY-NC 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 105,961 records in English (16 MB) - Update frequency: monthly
Metadata as an EML file download in English (12 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (9 KB)

Description

The MSB Division of Amphibians and Reptiles maintains nearly 100,000 specimens, mostly from the Southwestern United States (primarily from New Mexico and surrounding states). The collection also includes substantial numbers of specimens from elsewhere in the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean region, the Galapagos Islands, and Vietnam. The division maintains representative skeletal material, a small type collection, and a collection of uncatalogued specimens for teaching purposes. Important collections in the division's holdings are from Big Bend National Park by W.G. Degenhardt and T.L. Brown (all taxa), the Appalachian Plateau by G.B. Wilmott (salamanders), the West Indies by K.L. Jones (leptodactylid frogs), and the Delmarva Peninsula by R. Conant (all taxa). A collection of 5,000 amphibians and reptiles made by William J. Koster formed the basis of the original collection; however,a dramatic increase in holdings occurred with the arrival of William G. Degenhardt in 1960 from Texas A&M University. Through Degenhardt's own collecting efforts and those of his students, the division grew rapidly in size during the 1960's and 70's. Since the late 1980's, the division has become the primary repository for specimens collected as part of expanding research on the State's herpetofauna by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and continues to receive collections provided by researchers from a variety of state and federal agencies. These extensive collections and the increased knowledge of New Mexico's herpetofauna has resulted in the publication of Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico (1996) by W.G. Degenhardt, C.W. Painter & A.H. Price.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 105,961 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Occurrence (core)
105961
Multimedia 
18

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB)

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Museum of Southwestern Biology. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: fb639e31-52eb-4998-afb1-984ee12aca0f.  Museum of Southwestern Biology publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Occurrence; Specimen; Occurrence

Contacts

Lisa Barrow
  • Originator ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles
Museum of Southwestern Biology
  • University of New Mexico
87131-0001 Albuquerque
NM
US
Tom Giermakowski
  • Metadata Provider ●
  • Point Of Contact
  • Collection Manager
Museum of Southwestern Biology
  • University of New Mexico
87131-0001 Albuquerque
NM
US
  • (505) 277-5130
David Bloom
  • Programmer
  • VertNet Coordinator
VertNet
Dusty McDonald
  • Point Of Contact
  • Arctos Database Programmer
University of Alaska Museum

Geographic Coverage

The MSB amphibian and reptile collection is worldwide in scope, with particularly strong holdings from Western North America, the Galapagos Islands, and the Caribbean.

Bounding Coordinates South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180]

Taxonomic Coverage

The MSB amphibian and reptile collections are taxonomically broad, covering over 60 different families of amphibians and reptiles (representing over 60% of known families), and 1100 genera (representing ~74% of all known genera world-wide). The representation is reasonably complete, with 25 families from the collection containing over 80% of all genera from within that particular family. Several families are especially well represented in numbers of specimens, including Phrynosomatidae (>14,000), Teiidae (>9000), and Colubridae (>8000) for reptiles; and Ranidae (>4300) and Bufonidae (>4000) for amphibians.

Class Reptilia (Reptiles), Amphibia (Amphibians)

Temporal Coverage

Living Time Period 1905 to Present

Additional Metadata

http://vertnet.org/resources/norms.html

Alternative Identifiers fb639e31-52eb-4998-afb1-984ee12aca0f
https://ipt.vertnet.org/resource?r=msb_herp