Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB) Amphibian and Reptile Specimens (Arctos) for GGBN

The MSB Division of Amphibians and Reptiles contains a growing collection of over 100,000 catalogued specimens and is among the largest research collections in the western United States. A collection of 5,000 amphibians and reptiles from 1930's onwards made by William J. Koster formed the basis of the original collection. However, with the arrival of William G. Degenhardt in 1960 from Texas A&M University, a dramatic increase in holdings occurred. Through Degenhardt's own collecting efforts and those of his classes and graduate 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 herpetological 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. The collections are growing rapidly through the active research programs of curators, staff, and students, and through ongoing collaborations with other institutions and governmental agencies. Taxonomic Coverage The current collection consists of ~26% amphibian and ~74% reptile specimens. The catalogued specimens at MSB are very diverse, 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). Furthermore, 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. Geographic Coverage Most specimens in the collection (>51%) are from New Mexico and represent all known species occurring in the state, including one holotype and 107 paratypes of seven species. While regional in scope, MSB also possesses a large collection of specimens from Galápagos Islands of Ecuador (>7,600) and Nevada (>4,500).The holdings also contain important numbers of specimens from surrounding states including Colorado (>5400 specimens), Texas (>3600 specimens), Arizona (>3,300 specimens), and Chihuahua, Mexico (>1,000 specimens). Of particular note are the early collections from the Appalachian Plateau by G.B. Wilmott (524 salamanders), the West Indies by K.L. Jones (802 leptodactylid frogs), and the Delmarva Peninsula, New Jersey by the late Roger Conant, whose collections contain more than 1600 specimens. Temporal Coverage 1905 (beginning of 20th century) - onwards