You’ve probably driven past them a thousand times. If you live in Tempe or even just visit the Phoenix metro area, you know those nondescript buildings on the edge of Arizona State University’s campus. They look like warehouses. Maybe labs. Honestly, most people assume they’re just places where old textbooks go to die or where administrators hide from the sun. But inside? It’s a totally different world. We’re talking about millions of specimens that tell the story of our planet, from the tiny legs of a desert beetle to the massive bones of creatures that haven't walked the Earth in millennia. The asu natural history collections aren't just a library of dead stuff; they are a living, breathing database of how life on Earth survives, adapts, and sometimes fails.
It's massive.
Most folks don't realize that these collections house nearly 4 million specimens. That’s a number so big it’s hard to wrap your head around, right? Imagine every single person in the city of Phoenix holding two or three dried plants or pinned insects. That’s the scale. But it isn't about hoarding. It’s about science. These collections serve as a "biorepository," a fancy word for a biological bank. When a scientist in 2026 wants to know how the Sonoran Desert looked before the massive urban sprawl of the late 20th century, they don't just guess. They go to the cabinets. They look at the physical evidence.
The Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center (BioKIC)
The heart of the operation is often centered around what’s known as BioKIC. This isn't just a dusty room with some magnifying glasses. It’s where the asu natural history collections get dragged into the digital age. They are obsessed—in a good way—with "informatics." This is basically the intersection of biology and big data. They aren't just keeping a beetle in a drawer; they’re digitizing its entire existence so a researcher in Tokyo can study it without ever hopping on a plane.
It’s about accessibility.
If you walk through the aisles, you’ll see row after row of high-density shelving. It’s quiet. A little chilly, usually, to keep the bugs from eating the other bugs. You’ve got the Vascular Plant Herbarium, which is legendary in the botany world. It’s one of the best records of Southwestern flora in existence. Then you’ve got the lichen collection. Yeah, lichens. Those crusty things on rocks. ASU has one of the biggest lichen herbaria in the country. Why? Because lichens are like the "canary in the coal mine" for air quality. By looking at a lichen collected in 1950 and comparing it to one from today, scientists can literally see how our air has changed.
What’s Actually Inside These Drawers?
Let’s get specific because the "natural history" label is a bit broad. The collections are split into several distinct units, each with its own vibe and its own quirks.
The Hasbrouck Insect Collection is a big one. We're talking about two million specimens. If you hate creepy crawlies, this might be your nightmare, but for researchers, it’s gold. They have an incredible array of Coleoptera (beetles) and Hymenoptera (bees and wasps). Dr. Nico Franz and his team have been instrumental in making sure these aren't just sitting in the dark. They use high-resolution imaging to create 3D models of these insects. It’s wild. You can see the tiny hairs on a bee's leg in better detail than if you were holding it in your hand.
Then there’s the Vertebrate Collections.
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- Mammals
- Birds
- Amphibians
- Reptiles
- Fish
It’s all there. They’ve got thousands of skeletons and skins. It sounds a bit macabre, sure. But if you want to understand how climate change is shrinking the body size of certain desert mammals—which is a real thing happening right now—you need these baselines. You need to know how big a woodrat was in 1920 to understand why its descendants in 2026 are struggling.
The Herbarium and the Power of Plants
The ASU Herbarium (which goes by the acronym ASUC) is a heavyweight. It holds about 300,000 specimens of vascular plants. If you’ve ever hiked Camelback Mountain or wandered through the Superstitions, you’ve seen the living versions of what’s stored here. But the herbarium holds the "type specimens." These are the physical gold standards for a species. If a new cactus is discovered, it gets compared to the type specimens at ASU to see if it’s truly unique. It’s the ultimate "who’s who" of the botanical world.
They focus heavily on the Southwest and northern Mexico. It’s a regional treasure that has global implications. Because the Sonoran Desert is such a brutal, extreme environment, the plants here have evolved some of the coolest survival tricks on the planet. Scientists from all over the world study the asu natural history collections to see if these "stress-tolerant" plants hold the secret to future crop survival in a warming world.
Why Should You Care in 2026?
I know what you’re thinking. "It’s 2026, we have AI and satellites, why do we need a drawer full of dried weeds?"
Here is the thing: You can’t sequence the DNA of a satellite image.
These physical specimens are a giant library of genetic material. We are finding new ways to extract DNA from specimens that were collected over a hundred years ago. This is called "ancient DNA" research, even if the specimen isn't that old in the grand scheme of things. It allows us to track how diseases move through populations. It lets us see how genetic diversity drops when a city cuts off a wildlife corridor.
The asu natural history collections are essentially a time machine.
And let's talk about the "extinction crisis." We are losing species faster than we can name them. Sometimes, a scientist will be looking through a drawer of "unidentified" insects at ASU and realize they are looking at a species that is already extinct in the wild. If we didn't have that specimen, we wouldn't even know it ever existed. It’s a somber thought, but it makes the work they do over there feel pretty urgent.
The People Behind the Glass
It isn't just robots and drawers. The staff at the collections are some of the most passionate, slightly-obsessed (again, in a good way) people you’ll ever meet. They are curators, collection managers, and students. ASU is big on involving undergraduates. You’ve got 19-year-olds who are becoming world experts on a specific genus of desert scrub.
They also do a ton of community outreach. They have these "Open Door" events where the public can actually go in and see the stuff. It’s not just for the ivory tower folks. They want you to see the "Frankenstein" fish and the giant moths. They want you to understand that Arizona’s backyard is teeming with life that we still don't fully understand.
Dealing with the "Gross" Factor
Let's be real—natural history collections can be a bit icky for the uninitiated. There are jars of snakes in ethanol. There are "study skins" of birds that look like little feathered burritos. It’s easy to dismiss this as old-fashioned or weird. But there is a deep respect in this work. Every specimen was collected for a reason. Most of the modern additions come from "salvage"—birds that hit windows or animals hit by cars. Instead of letting that life go to waste, it’s preserved so it can teach us something.
It’s about turning a tragedy into data.
The Digital Frontier
ASU is a leader in the "Extended Specimen" concept. This is the idea that a specimen isn't just the physical object. It’s the object + the DNA sequence + the GPS coordinates of where it was found + the weather data from that day + the photos of it when it was alive. By linking all this stuff together, the asu natural history collections are creating a high-definition map of life.
They use platforms like iNaturalist to engage regular people. You take a photo of a weird bug in your backyard, you upload it, and maybe a curator at ASU sees it and says, "Hey, we need a specimen of that for the collection." You become part of the scientific record. It’s citizen science at its best.
How to Support or Visit
You can't just walk in on a Tuesday afternoon and start pulling out drawers. It’s a working research facility, not a museum in the traditional sense. However, they are part of the larger ASU museum system.
- Check for Open Houses: ASU’s "Open Door" event is your best bet. It’s usually once a year, and the collections are a highlight.
- Online Portals: You can browse the collections online through the SEINet portal (for plants) or the Scan database (for insects). It’s surprisingly addictive.
- Volunteer: If you’re a student or a local with a lot of patience, they often need help with digitizing records or mounting specimens.
The reality is that these collections are underfunded. Not just at ASU, but everywhere. People love big telescopes and shiny new tech, but the fundamental "boots on the ground" biology of keeping track of what lives where is often overlooked. Supporting these institutions is literally supporting our ability to understand the world we live in.
Moving Forward with the Collections
If you're interested in the natural world, don't just look at the pretty pictures in magazines. Dig into the data. The asu natural history collections are a reminder that we are part of a massive, complex, and fragile ecosystem. Every specimen in those drawers is a piece of a puzzle we are still trying to solve.
Next time you see a lizard scuttle across a rock or a weird weed growing in a sidewalk crack, think about those warehouses in Tempe. There’s a good chance a relative of that lizard or a dried version of that weed is sitting in a drawer right now, waiting for a scientist to ask it the right question.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Explore the Digital Archives: Visit the ASU BioKIC website to see the sheer volume of digitized records. It’s a rabbit hole worth falling down.
- Contribute to Citizen Science: Start using the iNaturalist app. Your observations in the Southwest contribute directly to the broader context that these collections provide.
- Visit the ASU School of Life Sciences: Keep an eye on their event calendar. They often host talks and "science cafes" that bridge the gap between these archives and the public.
- Check the Biodiversity Data: If you're a student or researcher, look into the Symbiota software platform, which ASU helps lead, to see how natural history data is integrated across the globe.