Collections at the Biodiversity Center
Explore the Collections here: Biodiversity Center Collections
Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center:
The TEX and LL herbaria contain over 1,000,000 total specimens and are among the largest herbaria in the southwestern United States. The facility ranks 13th in size across the nation. About a quarter of the specimens were collected in Texas, the largest holdings of Texas plants in the world. Nearly half of the specimens are from Latin America, with an especially strong representation from Mexico and northern Central America. Presently the number of new specimens accessioned into the Plant Resources Center’s herbaria is growing at an approximate rate of 7,000 per year.
Entomology Collection:
The Entomology Collection contains 500,000 pinned and 1.5 million ethanol-preserved specimens, with concentrations in Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Coleoptera (beetles), Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, and ants), and cave invertebrates.
Most specimens document the geographic and seasonal occurrences of insect species across Texas, but the collection houses important samples from other states, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia; as well as the historic Ludolph Heiligbrodt Collection (1870-1910) from Bastrop County; as well as a collection of insect-host plant voucher specimens. Voucher specimens from University of Texas research projects, including a number of landmark studies on fire ants, are also in the collection.
Ichthyology Collection:
The Ichthyology collection currently (October, 2018) consists of more than 70,000 lots (over 1.5 million specimens), most of which are "wet" collections preserved for long-term storage in 70% non-denatured ethanol. They have a small selection of larval fish from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands that are in 10% formalin. Their skeletal collection consists of around 1300 cleared and stained fish, as well as over 500 skeletal preparations. The alcoholic collections currently occupy 1586 square feet, spread out over two rooms. They also have a tissue collection with over 2000 samples preserved in 100% ethanol frozen in liquid nitrogen.
Herpetology Collection:
The Herpetology Collection includes more than 115,000 individually catalogued and databased specimens, including ~3700 skeletons, used for research by faculty, staff and students at the University, as well as by qualified researchers throughout the world. The collection is also used for teaching courses (e.g., Vertebrate Natural History, Comparative Anatomy, Herpetology, and Field Herpetology) in Integrative Biology.
The collection began as a nucleus of research and teaching materials assembled by W. Frank Blair and his students in the Zoology Department; these were transferred to the Texas Memorial Museum in 1950's. The Herpetology Collection, along with other units of the Texas Natural History Collections (TNHC) was transferred to the Department of Integrative Biology in 2014.
Cave Arthropods (and other invertebrates)
The Cave Arthropod collection is the world's largest institutional collection of cave organisms, specializing in material from the many hundreds of caves in Texas and adjacent Mexico.
Also associated with this collection are 400,000 slide-mounted and alcohol-preserved specimens of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine organisms from many parts of the world, but with emphasis on the United States and Mexico. This collection is currently at the Pickle Research Campus, but will soon be established at the Lake Austin Center.
Ornithology and Mammalogy
1,800 specimens of birds and more than 6,000 mammals, mostly from Texas and northern Mexico and collected in the 1930s-1960s, have been transferred to Texas Tech University. Contact heathgarner@ttu.edu for information.
Genetic Resources
The Genetic Resources Collection is a world-class resource that supports molecular phylogenetic and evolution studies of UT researchers and collaborators, as well as the research community worldwide. It includes >40,000 samples housed in -80 ultracold freezers and liquid nitrogen storage tanks, which guarantee that the samples will be useful for decades. Contact David Canatella or Travis Laduc for information.