The CUMV Herpetology Collection became one of the leading university based herp collections in North America during the first half of this century, largely because of the efforts of Professor Albert Hazen Wright and his wife, Anna Allen Wright. The major strengths of the collection, amphibians from the southeastern United States and both reptiles and amphibians from the Northeast, reflects the intensive collection by the Wrights. Much of the material collected by the Wrights in New York and Georgia is not duplicated elsewhere. At present, the cataloged collection contains 29,000 alcoholic specimens, 172 dry skeletons, and 457 cleared and stained specimens. In all appoximately 300 species of amphibians and 500 species of reptiles are represented.

The last 15 years have been seen important acquisitions for the collection. To complement our traditional strength in North American taxa, we have made a concerted effort to obtain foreign material, especially synoptic series representing geographic areas. This material includes research specimens collected by Dr. F. Harvey Pough in Western and South Australia. The donation of his personal collection by Dr. Kraig Adler (Neurobiology and Behavior) has added more than 100 new species to the collection. Through collecting, exchanges and acquisition of other various collections we now have good representation of Costa Rican viperids, lizards from Western and South Australia, amphibians and reptiles from Puerto Rico, snakes and lizards from Mexico, and a more representative collection of African and European species.

Data for specimens and tissues contained in the CUMV Herpetology Collection can be searched via the HerpNET data portal.

Recent publications based on specimens from the CUMV Herpetological Collection

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Allsteadt, J., A.H. Savitzky, C.E. Petersen, and D.N. Naik. 2006 Geographic variation in the morphology of Crotalus horridus (Serpentes: Viperidae). Herpetological Monographs, 20:1-63.

Montanucci, R.R. 2006. A review of the amphibians of the Jim Timmerman Natural Resources Area, Oconee and Pickens Counties, South Carolina. Southeastern Naturalist, 5(1):1-58.

Pauly, G.B., O. Piskurek and H.B. Shcaffer. 2007 Phylogeographic concordance in the southeastern United States: the flatwoods salamander, Ambystoma cingulatum, as a test case. Molecular Ecology 16(2):415–429.

Robertson, J.M., and A.D.  Robertson. 2008. Spatial and temporal patterns of phenotypic variation in a Neotropical frog, Journal of Biogeography, 35(5):830-843.

Smith, L.L., W.J. Barichivich, J.S. Staiger, K.G. Smith, and C.K. Dodd, Jr. 2006. Detection probabilities and site occupancy estimates for amphibians at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The American Midland Naturalist 155(1):149–161.

Wiens, J.J., M.C. Brandley, and T.W. Reeder. 2006. Why does a trait evolve multiple times within a clade? Repeated evolution of snakelike body form in squamate reptiles. Evolution. 60(1):123-141.