Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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Maintenance on this system will make it temporarily unavailable for short periods of time between 8:00 and 10:00 AM EDT this Saturday, 06 June.

Search will be unavailable on Tuesday, 17 April, from 10 to 10:30 AM (EDT)

Herpetology Collections at NMNH

The Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, houses and maintains the largest herpetology collection in the world with over 580,000 specimens. Our collection, comprised primarily of fluid preserved specimens, includes representatives of about 63% of the approximately 15,000 known species of the world's herpetofauna. Our database holds approximately 13,400 type records; over 2,470 of these are primary (name bearing) types. For more information please see the Division's Collections page.

Search the Amphibian and Reptile Collections

Key word searches on summary fields can be run from the Keywords Search tab. Searches can be run against specific fields from the Search by Field tab. If you don't know what to search for, try one of the three sample searches in the Quick Browse list below.

Please note that not all of our holdings are included in our specimen database at present (99% are completely or partially listed). Currently only a small number of specimens have associated images. We are constantly adding records and images to the Herpetology database. If you spot an error please use the Feedback tab to let us know.

Help

See the Help tab to learn more about searching and then exploring your returned results (sorting, exporting, etc.).

Quick Browse Searches

Use the By Field search to find specimen data that match values in specific database fields. Enter a value or choose one from the dropdown lists.

Enter your keywords separated by spaces and click Search. Records that match your search terms will be returned.

Note that searching for common (vernacular) names may not yield the expected results. Associating common names with specimen records is a work in progress.

Keyword search example: lithobates pipiens south dakota

The results of your searches can be displayed in Grid (a sortable, customizable table) or Gallery View (best for reviewing images). Use the Switch button Change View to cycle between these views.

In Grid View:

In Gallery View:

See Exporting Results for information on downloading results to, for example, Excel.

Open the full collection record by clicking the expansion button (Expansion button) in Grid View, or anywhere within the image frame in Gallery View. Inverse expansion buttons (Collapse button) indicate records with multimedia (typically, images).

Sort results in Grid View by clicking the column header (or by choosing Sort from the column's dropdown menu).

Export all or selected results by clicking the Export Results as CSV button in the bottom toolbar in Grid or Gallery View.

Here are a few search tips:

To create a link to specific records at NMNH provide a querystring for:

https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/herps/?QUERYSTRING

where QUERYSTRING is (use a plus-sign to separate case-insensitive terms):

It is best to use only letters, numbers, pluses (+), dashes (-), and commas in your querystrings, and to avoid other characters.

Please use the Feedback page to report problems you find with the data, or with using these search pages.