Collections

The Section of Amphibians and Reptiles maintains a collection of over 207,500 specimens and ranks in the top ten amphibian and reptile collections in the US. Over ninety percent of them are fluid preserved but others are prepared as skeletons, skins, mounts, or cleared and stained preparations, eggs, etc.

The collection is primarily North American in origin and has specimens from every state, with 20 states having over 1500 specimens. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia have outstanding collections. There are smaller collections from most parts of the world but fair sized collections from the Caribbean, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Paraguay, northern South America, Spain, South Africa, Cameroon, India, and Sri Lanka.

The collection of North American freshwater turtles is among the largest in the world. Many of the specimens come from researchers investigating sex determination by incubation temperature of eggs. The collections deposited by Richard Vogt and Michael Ewert formed much of what was known on the subject in the late 1970s through the 1990s.

Many artifacts from the collection are available in the Collections Online website.

Type Collections

There are 148 Holotypes in the collection. The largest number of holotypes (ca. 60) are from the Carribean primarily contributed by Albert Schwartz, and the second largest group and from the Philippines from Edward H.Taylor. 23 primary types are from South America with the majority from early collection in Bolivia. There are over a dozen from the United States, with a handful others scattered around the world.

There are 1827 catalogue numbers listed as Paratypes in the database. Over the years we have exchanged quite a few but because some paratypes were “lots” of specimens, we have actually around 1970 paratypes.

Database

The database currently has over 168,000 records, but because of the lot cataloguing of specimens over the years, there are probably about 207,500 specimens with an additional several thousand un-catalogued specimens.

The collection was first placed on the Web at the Gopher Server at the California Academy of Sciences in 1994. This site can still be used to quickly obtain summary information for species numbers: http://www.calacademy.org/research/herpetology/Comb_Coll_Index/

If you want detailed information on the specimens in the Carnegie collection, the data is available on the VertNET portal and the HerpNET2 portal (see directions below).

Brief Directions for Accessing the Amphibian and Reptile records via VertNET and HerpNET

Data in the Amphibian and Reptile collection may be accessed via two portals at this time. Carnegie records are available on the VertNet site at http://68.111.46.217/pres/PresentationServlet?action=home.

• Click the Build Query link.
• In the PresentationServlet page, under "Select data providers" click “Carnegie Museum of Natural History—Amphibians and Reptiles”.
• Scroll further down the page to select query conditions built to specifications of geography, species, collector, catalogue number, etc., or any combination of these criteria.

After selecting the search criteria, you can choose the mapping result set or the full specimen result set; set the specify record limit and click on submit query. There will be a brief period while the data is retrieved, and then, depending on which result set was chosen, a map can be created and a mapping data set retrieved, or a full specimen data set can be viewed. The data may be downloaded by copying the onscreen table or by clicking download tabular data. Not all specimens have been georeferenced, nor have all georeferenced data been repatriated with the individual specimens. Note the field individual count, as exchanged specimens have a zero in this field, while some specimens are lot catalogued with many individuals having the same catalogue number

The mapping program is via Google Maps GNIS when georeferencing data has been associated with the specimens. This format allows you to view standard mapping, satellite view (aerial photograph), topographic map, and terrain.

There is a second-generation HerpNET web portal at http://www.herpnet2.org/basicsearch.aspx. After accepting the terms set out on this page, you will reach the Basic Search page. The query parameters are set up somewhat differently from the former HerpNET/VertNET query and are perhaps more intuitive for the first-time user. The mapping system uses Google Earth to locate specimens which have georeferencing data associated with them.

Museum Library (Section of Amphibians & Reptiles)
The herpetology library was started with the purchase of the Albert Günther personal library of many 19th-century volumes, and grew by many gifts of books over the years by current and former curators as well as researchers around the world. The reprint Library, consisting of roughly 22,000 indexed papers, was started by M. Graham Netting and benefited by gifts over the years. Unfortunately it is not accessible at present, but the database can be searched.

In 1994 an endowment was created to fund the library named to honor the late Curator C. J. McCoy. Currently it generates enough money to purchase a few of the excellent works being published in the discipline. Donations to the McCoy library can be made in the form of books or reprints, or monetary gifts which should be specified to be placed into the endowment.

The Amphibians and Reptiles library is housed with the main Natural History Library along with general and multidisciplinary works.

Please visit the Museum Library site for information on accessing titles. Titles in the Museum Library may not be loaned, and must be used onsite.