Scientific Collecting, Voucher Specimens, and Things Like That

The following is a reprinted article from 1990 by Dr. Sherman A. Minton, known as one of the giants of herpetology in his time. Though this is a dated paper, it still stands the test of time.

Sherman A. Minton Jr.

(Reprinted from The Monitor, August 1990)

Many persons who are interested in herpetology, and particularly in conservation, are unhappy with their colleagues who collect amphibians and reptiles for museum specimens.

Moreover, they seem to collect primarily those species that are rare and unusual at least in a

particular locality.

It seems like a flagrant violation of the conservation ethic. As one who has done his share of this sort of collecting, I am going to try to explain why it is necessary.

To begin with, you will have to agree that studies on the distribution and geographic variation of animals are serious science. If you don’t feel this way, but I’m talking about, document as to locality and date and deposited in a well cared for collection are known as voucher specimens. And her pathology they are the best way to verify that species. X occurred in a locality Y on date Z. There are alternatives, but first, let me give some examples that involve Indiana snakes.

In 1892 Oliver P. Hay had no hesitation about listing the mud snake (Francia abacura) and the coral snake (Micrurus fulvius) as part of the Indiana Herpetofauna, but he was dubious about the presence of the cottonmouth (Akistrodon piscivorus) in the state. Today we know there are at least two spots in the state where the cottonmouth almost certainly occurs. But probably no one alive today has seen a mud snake or a coral snake in the field in the Hoosier state. Voucher specimens collected about 1880 by the well-known naturalist, Robert Ridgeway, and it deposited in the National Museum of Natural History they’ve no doubt that the mud snake wants inhabited swamp of Knox County, Indiana. Moreover, he said one specimen was found with her eggs, making it clear there was a viable breeding population. He didn’t get the last mud snakes in the state; they were reported again in 1894 by Angus Gaines, an amateur naturalist living at Vincennes. He didn’t have any specimens, but Ridgeways specimens gave credits to his report. The mud snake seems to have vanished with the drainage of the extensive Cypress swamps of southwestern Indiana, but there is the remote chance a small population may still exist. If it is found, do we take a voucher specimen? Possibly not – I’d settle for a good photograph.

The cottonmouth, with much of the same general range in habit as the mud snake, alluded the scientific discovery much longer. Of course, in Oliver Haye’s day and for years after, everyone who spent time outdoors knew there were poisonous water moccasins in all parts of Indiana. But no one could come up with a bona fide specimen until May of 1983 when Tony Wilson and I were asked to identify a large snake killed at Buffalo Bottoms near Jasper.

It was a cottonmouth, and we saw others where it was taken. The original dead snake served as our voucher specimen. Subsequently, another cottonmouth from a locality near the Ohio river on the Harrison – Crawford County border was found in the IU Southeast collection and documents another Indiana locality.

The coral snake story is a puzzle letter. Sometime about 1890 a colorful snake was killed near Milan and Ripley County and brought to Bigney‘s drugstore in the nearby town of Sunman where it was preserved. It was identified by Professor A. J. Bidney and deposited in the collection of Moore’s Hill College, where he was on the faculty. He reported his find in the first number of the proceeds of Indiana of science and, based on his report, such herpetologist as Raymond Ditmars and Leonard Stejneger considered the coral snake native to Indiana. After Moore’s Hill College graduated its last class in 1919, its collections were transferred to Evansville College, where Dr. Goethe Link relocated the coal snake specimen about 1950. He and I checked the measurements and vertical counts and found them close to those given by Bigney. We also determined it belonged to the western sub species TENERE. The real puzzler is whether this snake was of natural population or was accidentally introduced. No coral snakes have been found near Milan or anywhere else in Indiana since then, and this is far from the nearest authentic records in Arkansas and Mississippi. The country around Milan today does not look like the terrain where I have found coral snakes in the south, and no other unusual reptiles or amphibians have been found in this area. I believe that the Millen snake was one that had been accidentally brought up from the south, and it was living free until killed and identified, and those days literally one in 1 million chance.

My own story with the Indiana Scarlet snake is also strange. In the summer of 1935, four of us who regularly hunted snakes and the knobs near New Albany found an odd little snake. We couldn’t identify, but which looked like the picture of the scarlet snake (Cemophora coccinea) in Ditmar’s reptile book, the only reference book we had. Our husband re-techniques were extremely primitive in those days, and we put the little snake into a galvanized iron wash top with some other small snakes. A few days later, a heavy thunderstorm dumped several inches of water into the tub. The other snakes swam to freedom; the scarlet snake drowned. I preserved it, and a year or so later, sent it to Dr. Ditmar’s who confirmed my identification. He didn’t seem specially surprised. This specimen might have been just as enigmatic as the coral snake record if Dr. Bernard Bechtel hadn’t come to

Indiana. In May 1957, he, my eldest daughter, and I collected two Scarlett snakes in the knobs in two days. None have been found in Indiana since. All the Indiana specimens were preserved, and have been examined by others. I don’t think we got the last ones. This is an uncommon snake throughout its range and extremely secretive. I’m pretty sure it still lives in the knobs. Because it looks so much like a small red milk snake Lampropeltis triangulum syspila), I did not accept a record that wasn’t backed up by an actual specimen or a very good close-up photo of the head and ventral service.

Voucher specimens don’t have to document rarities to be scientifically useful. Dr. Douglas Rossman, *Now at Louisiana State University, was interested in the taxonomy of ribbon, snakes, and particularly whether the eastern and western ribbon snakes, traditionally considered subspecies, might not actually be two full species. The crux of the matter was what happened where the ranges of the two forms came together. If they were subspecies, the characteristic separating them would gradually blend producing an intermediate or integrated population. If they were species, both would maintain the identity. Indiana happened to be in the zone of greatest overlap, and, lucky for Doug, there were quite a few museum specimens from the state. He was able to demonstrate that they behave here and elsewhere as full species. Contrariwise, the small sample of Indiana and Kentucky Crown snakes provided evidence that the Appalachian population of the snake, once known as T. C. Midriff, is not

significantly different from Loland populations to be worthy of recognition.

An obvious alternative to preserved voucher specimens is photographs. But this has its problems. A few museums today are prepared and equipped to create collections of 35 mm slides or other photographs. These usually remain with the photographer where they are more likely to be lost or damaged and often are difficult to obtain for examination. Not all herpetologists are good photographers and even expert photographers have trouble occasionally with cameras and film. some species are easily identified even in bad photos; the alligator snapper is a good example. For many species, however, the photographer must not only have a good camera, but must also know exactly which features he wants to show, the belly pattern of the Grahm’s queen snake (Regina grahami), the head markings of false map turtles (Graptemys pseudo-geopraphica), the mental shields of the Coal skink (Eumeces anthracinus), and mini structure is important in the herpetological, taxonomy - teeth, hemipenes, femoral pores, just can’t be adequately seen in ordinary photos. Finally, I believe that honest (and dishonest) mistakes are more easily made with photos than with actual specimens.

The science of systematics is becoming ever more complicated. To common Indiana tree frogs,

(Hyla versicolor) and (Hyla chrysocelis) are the best identified by their calls, identification of salamanders in the Ambystoma jeffersonianum complex often requires measuring red blood cells, and minute differences in tooth shape seem to be all that separates the pond breeding (Ambystoma texanum) from the recently described stream breeding (Ambystoma barbouri). When I had my formal training in herpetology, emphasis was on the status goal differences between populations and the lung series of a lot of specimens from locality. The first money I ever made as a herpetologist was by collecting about 40 chorus, frogs (Pseudacris triseriata) from the type locality near New Harmony for a famous museum. The bright young herpetologist of today think of immunological differences, allo-enzymes, and DNA sequences. This still requires the collection of animals from the wild. The need for many specimens from a locality is an emphasis so much, but it is necessary to have both sexes and examples of more than one age group represented.

Very rarely will this harm natural populations of a species. Sometimes it may help, for knowing the geographic variation, natural distribution pattern, and ecological requirements of an uncommon species, often permits development of better measures for its protection.

Because Donald Tinkle and Roger Conan determined that the Brazos water snake (Nerodia h. harteri) the harder eye and the Concho watersnakes (Nerodia h. paucimaculata) differ from each other and from all other water snakes, there has been an extra extraordinary effort to protect the habitat of these snakes.

Sherman A. Minton.

Hoosier Herpetological Society

The Monitor, August 1990