Natural Science Research Laboratory

Voucher Birds from the NSRL Bird Collection

view of tissue boxes inside a Liquid Nitrogen Freezer

The Natural Science Research Laboratory (NSRL) is a division of the Museum at Texas Tech University committed to the mission of building and preserving a library of our planet's natural heritage for education and research purposes. The NSRL has been recognized as a leader in the development and use of innovative methodologies for biological collections care and data management.

The NSRL maintains four major natural history collections: Mammals, Birds, Invertebrate Zoology, and Genetic Resources. These collections are available to researchers at academic, scientific, and government institutions around the world for scientific investigation, discovery, and problem-solving in the natural sciences. The causes and impacts of animal-borne diseases, parasites, climate change, habitat loss, geographic isolation, and natural evolutionary processes and speciation are just a few examples of the investigations that can be conducted utilizing specimens and tissues archived in the NSRL’s collections. Further, the resources of the NSRL are utilized by the academic and scientific communities to train and educate students at the undergraduate and graduate levels for careers in the natural sciences as well as museum science.

News

November 2026 Special Publication #85, “The Death Valley Expedition of 1891: A Description of Fieldwork Activities, C. Hart Merriam Itinerary, Area Descriptions, and Mammal Report,” has been published. This unique volume is based on a manuscript drafted by Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam in the 1890s. The document was originally intended for publication as North American Fauna #6, but it was never completed. North American Fauna was a series of monographs published between 1889 and 2016 by the US Bureau of Biological Survey (later the US Fish and Wildlife Service) that described the findings of biological expeditions across North America. Doug Threloff, using the archived files of the nearly-complete General Report by Merriam, as well as the numerous field catalogs and special reports of the expedition biologists, was able to complete the monograph for publication as it was originally intended. Special Publication #85 provides a detailed General Report of the Death Valley Expedition that took place in California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona (with Merriam recognized posthumously as author) and a Mammal Report (authored by Threloff) that provides an accounting of the 5,659 mammals collected and observed during the expedition. This is a valuable historic accounting of the landscapes and mammalian fauna of the Death Valley region at the end of the 19th century—a region that has since come under pressure from anthropogenic developments and activities and from climate change. It is hoped that by publishing this document, twenty-first century biologists can use this historic information to gauge the magnitude of the effects of more than a century of human-related activities on this region.

May 2026 The Spring 2026 edition of NSRL News is now available! Check it out for updates on the latest NSRL happenings.

February 2026 Attention authors: Our revised Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines for Authors is now available! Please refer to this document when preparing manuscripts for submission to Occasional Papers and Special Publications, as it includes several important revisions, including: clarification of copyright and licensing policies; new guidelines for formatting literature citations; a change to the recommended source for current taxonomy of mammals; revised policies regarding page charges; and other editorial updates and clarifications.

February 2026 The NSRL is pleased to have Dr. Joseph Manthey join our team as Assistant Curator of Birds. Dr. Manthey is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences. His research group uses a combination of fieldwork, specimens, ecological data, genomics, and bioinformatics to study how organisms (mostly birds) evolve across both geographic and genomic landscapes.

October 2025 The NSRL is pleased to have Dr. Jorge Salazar-Bravo join our team as Assistant Curator of Mammals. Dr. Salazar-Bravo is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences. His research uses a combination of museum and laboratory-based approaches to study demographic and evolutionary processes shaping the origin, the genetic structure, and the phylogenetic relationships in various mammalian groups and at various hierarchical levels of biological organization.

August 2025 Announcement - Per the Texas Tech University's Office of Communications & Marketing, the name of the Museum is being changed from "Museum of Texas Tech University" to "Museum at Texas Tech University." This change is effective immediately, but will be reflected in updates to websites, promotional materials, and other media and communications over the next several months. Please be patient during this period of transition, as you will undoubtedly see use of both the former and current name.

August 2025 The NSRL is pleased to announce that Dr. Richard D. Stevens has been named Interim Director, and Dr. Caleb D. Phillips has been named Interim Assistant Director, of the NSRL. Dr. Stevens will maintain his role as Curator of Mammals, and Dr. Phillips will maintain his role as Curator of Genetic Resources. The NSRL looks forward to this period of leadership by Dr. Stevens and Dr. Phillips.

June 2025 Last year we had our first "Come Bug Me" event to showcase the Invertebrate Zoology Collection of the NSRL. Dr. Jennifer Girón, curator of the Invertebrate Zoology Collection, wrote a short communication about the behind the scenes putting together the event, that also includes an overview of the history and collections of the Museum of Texas Tech. The paper is now published in the journal Natural History Collections and Museomics and openly available online. Access the article (opens in new window)

April 2025 Students who have been working at the NSRL presented their projects at the 2025 Texas Tech University Undergraduate Research Conference. This year we had three students present: Emmalee Balch, Lily Prescott (both Department of Natural Resources Management), and Alan Ramirez (Department of Biological Sciences). Their posters are available online: Balch | Prescott | Ramirez.

See NSRL Updates for older news items.