Daniel Duran, assistant professor and naturalist at the public research Rowan University in New Jersey, is a recognized expert on the feisty tiger beetle family (Cicindelidae). He’s one of the authors of A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United State and Canada: Identification, Natural History, and Distribution of the Cicindelinae.

Duran had heard about the insect collection at Midwestern State University, which contains some specimens collected more than 70 years ago by the late biology professor emeritus Walter Dalquest, with several specimens only known from this collection, so he contacted Associate Professor of Biology Roy Vogtsberger. Duran had received a grant to study tiger beetles in Texas and while in the state, hoped to see the extensive MSU Texas collection.

When Duran viewed the collection, he saw five tiger beetles from Mexico, all collected by Dalquest in 1958, and was fascinated. He hadn’t seen others like them before. Was this a new species or an unknown color variation of a recognized species? “Those were really weird,” he said.

Proper scientific descriptions can be pages long as they define all the characteristics of the species and detail each feature and part of the beetles. The description for the species of Mexico beetles was short. The only other known description of that particular tiger beetle was written in 1881 by famed naturalist Henry Walter Bates, but it was considered inadequate when Duran compared the specimens in the MSU Texas collection to the description. Duran said he felt like they were a recognized species but an unusual color variety that was unknown.

As fascinated as Duran was by the beetles, he was also impressed by the MSU Texas collection as a whole. Duran said that it was much better than most small universities, thanks to the professors who added to the collection through the years, and especially the specimens brought by Dalquest.

“Hundreds of insects in the collection are from Dalquest’s Mexico and African trips,” Vogtsberger said. Even though Dalquest was more a vertebrate biologist, he started the insect collection back in the 50s, as he brought back specimens from his research trips in the infancy of the MSU Texas biology department.

“Dalquest got a bunch of cool stuff. He’s a big part of what makes this collection special,” Duran said. “It only takes one specimen to help make a collection special and Roy has done an impressive job of keeping it up. The fact that I was only there for a day and found these beetles shows how organized it was.”

Collections take time to maintain, and the MSU Texas collection has not been prioritized consistently, Vogtsberger said, and its future is uncertain. The collection is kept in drawers, boxes, and racks. Some specimens are pinned and some are glued to tiny triangles. Some are in vials of ethanol and some are microscopic so they are mounted on slides. Spiders are kept in alcohol in jars and on racks. All collections have been relocated for the Bolin renovation.