Curator Greg Pandelis handles a goliath frog at the Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center at The University of Texas at Arlington.
One of the largest reptile and amphibian collections in the country is at UTA
From goliath frogs to dwarf crocodiles, the collection in Arlington helps scientists keep track of a thriving animal world
At the University of Texas at Arlington, you’ll find two rooms of clear jars packed together like sardines. Their contents, submerged in foggy yellow liquid, hail from all over the world.
Some hold dozens of palm-sized frogs stacked on top of each other, webbed feet jutting out in all directions. Others reveal snakes with dark patterning coiled neatly around themselves. And stashed inside a bin below the gallon jars: an African dwarf crocodile.
The eerie collection, located within UTA’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center, is the largest in Texas and one of the largest in the country.
Researchers from UTA and across the globe study the library of over 200,000 specimens to learn about the reptiles and amphibians that crawl and slither about the earth. They analyze the creatures’ physical attributes and genetic material to reveal the secrets of an animal world that keeps the earth stable for human life.
Goliath frogs, extinct snakes
The center’s origins date back to the 1950s, when UTA biology professor William Pyburn started a collection of specimens to explain animal anatomy to his students.
In the ‘70s, Pyburn traveled by car to Colombia to collect reptile and amphibian specimens for field research. When he returned, he added the specimens to the collection, storing them in the basement of UTA’s Life Sciences building. By this time, the collection had swelled to nearly 8,000 specimens.
When Pyburn retired in the ‘80s, biology professor and herpetologist John Campbell took over as curator, collecting his own specimens to grow the collection. By 1999, it spanned nearly 100,000 creatures that either UTA researchers had collected themselves or were donated from zoos or other creature collections.
The collection found its current home at the center in 2004. Its creatures include those native to Texas and the U.S., as well as reptiles and amphibians from around the world.
The reptiles and amphibians are dead and preserved in a yellow fluid called ethanol — the same kind you’d find in a glass of beer or red wine — that keeps them from decomposing. When researchers collect specimens in the field, they remove only a handful, making sure not to disrupt the natural reptile and amphibian populations.
Greg Pandelis, the collection’s current curator, has been interested in creepy-crawlies since he started a colony of flesh-eating beetles as a kid. He grew up in Alaska next door to a fur trapper who’d give him animal skulls. Pandelis eagerly accepted, taking meticulous measurements of each new addition to his collection.
“I was museum-minded from a really young age,” he said.
Pandelis said every jar in the center has a story. One bin holds a foot-long goliath frog which Pandelis said likely ate “anything it could fit in its mouth.” Some gallon jars contain the last evidence of reptiles and amphibians that have since gone extinct. Others contain specimens that are almost 100 years old.
Library of creatures
Just like a book, researchers can’t get all the information they need about a creature by looking at the outside. They analyze specimens in different ways to answer burning research questions about what the creatures ate and how they lived.
Pandelis samples creatures that roam the state of Texas for one of his projects, focusing on areas that haven’t been covered yet. “If we don’t know that something exists in an area,” he said, “we can’t protect it.”
Matthew Fujita, a UTA biology professor and the center’s curator of herpetology, uses the collection to study parthenogenesis, a wacky way that certain female whiptail lizards reproduce by cloning themselves. Fujita wants to know whether this allows harmful genetic mutations to build up in the lizards’ offspring.
To answer that question, Fujita and his lab use a part of the creature that’s not sealed up in gallon jars but is just as important as the specimens themselves: their DNA.
When UTA researchers prepare a new specimen for the collection, they extract a tissue sample that is preserved in a freezer set to -80 degrees Celsius, or -112 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists can study the creatures’ genetic material to see how they’ve evolved over time.
Having the resource on campus makes it easier for Fujita and Pandelis to conduct their work, and scientists from around the globe can reach out to study a specimen. Without collections like UTA’s center, Fujita said researchers would have to collect hundreds of reptile or amphibian specimens themselves, or ask researchers across the globe for them one by one.
“When there isn’t an organized way for people to access specimens or tissues,” he said, “it’s likely just not going to happen.”
Maintaining the balance
The reptile and amphibian world is populated with thousands of species, some of whom we’ve not even discovered yet. UTA’s collection allows scientists to broaden our understanding of the creatures we share the planet with. Beyond that, reptiles and amphibians make earth a healthier place for humans by eating pests like rodents and cicadas, preventing them from running amok.
“To me, it’s really important as members of this earth to preserve and understand what we have here,” Pandelis said.
Pandelis loves his job as curator, but out of all the creatures he handles, there’s one he refuses to go anywhere near: worms.
“I mean, of course, they have their place in the ecosystem and they’re very, very important,” he said. “I just don’t want to touch them.”
Adithi Ramakrishnan is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.
