History of Herpetology at KU

The early (1900--1920) herpetological collections of the Natural History Museum were obtained by field parties working under the auspices of the State Biological Survey. Beginning in the 1920's Dr. Edward H. Taylor and his  Edward H. Taylor students expanded collecting efforts to adjacent states , southwestern United States, and eventually to Mexico. Thus, as the first curator of the herpetological collections, Taylor influenced their growth and scope; there were more than 40,000 specimens in the collection at the time of Taylor's retirement as curator in 1954. Beginning in 1932 Taylor and then graduate student Hobart M. Smith initiated collecting trips to Mexico. This work was done in the summers and financed by Taylor. The thousands of specimens resulting from these efforts became the EHT-HMS collection. When Smith was hired by the University of Illinois, the collection was split; approximately one half of the material went to the Natural History Museum at the University of Illinois; Taylor's half eventually was sold to the Field Museum of Natural History. None of the EHT-HMS collection is in the Natural History Museum at The University of Kansas. Likewise, the collections of caecilians assembled by Taylor in the 1950s and 1960s were sold to the Field Museum of Natural History. John M. Legler was appointed as a graduate student curator of the herpetological collections for the period 1954--1959, during which time the collections increased to 51,000 specimens; the increment primarily represented collections made in Costa Rica by Taylor.

     William E. Duellman became Curator of Herpetology in 1959 and with grant support from the  William E. Duellman with hylid frog National Institutes of Health, National Geographic Society, and especially the National Science Foundation undertook extensive field studies in Mexico, Central America, and South America. These field expeditions involved numerous graduate students, many of whom also returned to Latin America for individual studies. As a result of these field studies, the herpetological collections grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, but the single largest acquisition was 63,000 specimens collected by the late Albert Schwartz and associates in the West Indies. Consequently, the herpetological collections now exceed 280,000 specimens; the associated data are retrievable in a variety of formats from an electronic data base. In addition to the usual alcoholic specimens, the collection contains large numbers of amphibian larvae and skeletons, especially anurans. Other important material associated with voucher specimens includes color transparencies, tape recordings of anurans, histological preparations, and frozen tissues. Crowding of collections was lessened greatly when in 1996 the alcoholic collections were moved into a new wing on Dyche Hall.

     In addition to the curatorial and collection storage facilities, the Natural History Museum has histological and molecular laboratories, and photographic and sound-analysis facilities. The Division of Herpetology is equipped with a wide range of optical and computer equipment. A major asset is the herpetological library containing more than 3000 bound volumes and 27,000 reprints.

     Most of Duellman's research has dealt with various aspects of the neotropical herpetofauna, ranging from a monograph of the hylid frogs in Middle America (1970) and the biology of a herpetofauna in Amazonian Ecuador (1978) to a review of the frogs of the genus Eleutherodactylus in western Ecuador with John D. Lynch (1997) and the evolution of marsupial frogs (in preparation).  Duellman retired as Curator-in-Charge in 1997 and is now Curator Emeritis.

     Linda Trueb was appointed as a second curator in the Division of Herpetology in 1975. Her research is focused on the morphology of amphibians and has ranged from detailed studies on the skulls of casque-headed hylid frogs (1970) and the phylogeny of pipoid frogs (1988) to the relationships of the Lissamphibia (1991) and present endeavors on the integration of data from living and fossil taxa in a phylogenetic study of archeobatrachians. Duellman and Trueb combined efforts to produce the only existing compendium on amphibians, Biology of Amphibians (1986; reprinted in paperback in 1994).  Trueb was appointed Curator-in-Charge in 1997.

         John E. Simmons was appointed Collection Manager in 1981. In addition to managing daily routines in the collection and cataloguing new material, he has taken an active role in the conservation of natural history collections, and he is involved in several efforts focused on the assessment, care, and maintenance of fluid-preserved specimens and natural history collection management.

     One half-time graduate student curatorial assistantship provides essential assistance to the curators and collection manager and gives the student an excellent background in curatorial procedures in herpetology. In this way, several curators of herpetological collections (e.g., David C. Cannatella, Darrel R. Frost, Charles W. Myers) obtained their curatorial training.

  Henry Fitch In 1947, the university acquired a tract of 590 acres 7 miles northeast of Lawrence. This tract became the Natural History Reservation. The following year Henry S. Fitch joined the faculty as an assistant professor and superintendent of the reservation. Thus began a half century of research on the biota of this mixed prairie and woodland area, resulting in some of the most thorough autecological studies ever completed on reptiles, e.g., Fitch's work on the blue-tailed skink (1954) and on the copperhead (1963).

     As curators in the Natural History Museum Duellman, Trueb, and Brown have held professorships in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (formerly Systematics and Ecology) and have taught a variety of graduate level courses in herpetology, biogeography, evolutionary morphology, and scientific illustration. In their capacities, they and Fitch have maintained a strong graduate program in herpetology. Graduate students have come from throughout the United States, including Puerto Rico, as well as many foreign countries: Argentina, Brazil, Burma, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, India, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and Zambia. Since 1960, 26 students have completed the Master of Arts degree and 40 have complete the PhD degree under the direction of Duellman, Fitch, or Trueb. Doctoral dissertations reflect a wide variety of research carried out in many parts of the world. These include ecological and behavioral studies, such as reproductive strategies of neotropical frogs (Martha L. Crump, 1974), population biology of the brown soft-shelled turtle (Michael V. Plummer, 1975), and foraging ecology of garter snakes (Seigel, 1984). Biogeographic studies include the ecobiogeography of the herpetofauna of the Yucatan Peninsula (Julian C. Lee, 1977), late Pleistocene herpetofauna of Puerto Rico (Gregory K. Pregill, 1979), and biogeography of lizards in the Samoan Islands (Terry D. Schwaner, 1979). Systematic studies have varied from systematics of snakes of the genus Rhadinaea (Charles W. Myers, 1970) and phylogenetic relationships among iguanian lizards (Darrel R. Frost, 1985) to molecular studies, such as systematics of New World Rana (David M. Hillis, 1985) and phylogenetic relationships among desmognathine salamanders (Tom A. Titus, 1992). Morphological studies have included the osteology and myology of the carpus and tarsus of anurans (Marshall L. Andersen, 1978) and the morphology and mechanics of jaws of anurans (Rebecca A. Pyles, 1988). Also, numerous undergraduates who undertook research in herpetology have gone elsewhere for their graduate work and are now active in the field of herpetology; these include Pere Alberch, Neil B. Ford, and John J. Wiens.