{"id":149948,"date":"2026-02-04T01:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/149948\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:58:09","slug":"uta-amphibian-and-reptile-diversity-research-center-to-host-public-tour-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/149948\/","title":{"rendered":"UTA Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center to host public tour | Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"A girl points to a jar of preserving liquid with an animal in it.\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1763\" height=\"1175\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/68f9885db8549.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"133\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Lamar High School students Allyssa Austell, right, and Emma\u00a0Jokisch look at preserved specimens during the Night at the Museum event Oct. 21, 2025, at the Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theshorthorn.com\/users\/profile\/Samarie%20Goffney\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">File photo \/ Samarie Goffney<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On West Campus lies a building nationally and internationally recognized for its collection of books and research on reptiles and amphibians. Twice a year, this building opens for students, faculty, staff and residents to tour. <\/p>\n<p>In collaboration with the Herpetology Club, UTA\u2019s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center will host its semesterly A Night At The Museum event at 6 p.m. Friday, allowing attendees to explore specimens of reptiles and amphibians. <\/p>\n<p>Greg Pandelis, collections manager and biological curator at the center, said the event will feature a guided tour of the herpetology museum, including the specimen preparation room, department library and research specimen rooms. <\/p>\n<p>Pandelis said educational events like A Night at the Museum can create a more informed society, and one that could become more interested in the things around them. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if you don\u2019t understand the details of what we do with specimens or what we do in herpetology, it\u2019s good for people to just generally know, why do things like this exist? Why do we have research museums? How do scientists study x, y, z?\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>The event usually brings in about 30 people each semester and is among the department\u2019s most popular events, Pandelis said. <\/p>\n<p>Parking is available near the museum for permit holders, with additional options in lots 26 and 27. Visitors without permits can use two-hour visitor parking spots at Lot 26.<\/p>\n<p>Although the reptiles and amphibians don\u2019t come alive to talk and explore the facility like the exhibits in the film \u201cNight at the Museum,\u201d Pandelis said people ask him if the space ever creeps him out. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing alone at night or something, that never even occurred to me to be creeped out or anything like that,&#8221; he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m a special kind of person.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>@samip.parajuli.54<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theshorthorn.com\/news\/campus\/uta-amphibian-and-reptile-diversity-research-center-to-host-public-tour\/mailto:news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lamar High School students Allyssa Austell, right, and Emma\u00a0Jokisch look at preserved specimens during the Night at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,1086],"class_list":{"0":"post-149948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-campus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}