The first thing to catch your eye as you step out of the elevator is the wall of zoo-style animal displays.
The assortment of creatures inside looking back at you is the second.
This exhibit should highlight the native Oklahoman species on display, said professor Stanley Fox, curator of the collection of reptiles, amphibians and other vertebrates housed in the Life Sciences West building.
“I’ve always felt that the reason we want these animals is that I want to show [things that live in Oklahoma],” he said. “I don’t want to have cobras and mambas and boas and pythons.”
Fox said introductory biology students care for the animals, which range from snapping turtles and tarantulas to a giant green iguana, on the third floor.
Cassondra Walker, a wildlife ecology senior, is the teaching assistant in charge of the animals.
“I don’t know why we have a lot of what we do,” Walker said. “I’ve just sort of inherited them. We’ve just collected them over the years, and now I have them.”
Walker said the department’s main attraction is the three-foot iguana, Elvis, who is often shown at schools because of his unusually calm temperament.
“He likes to be petted,” she said. “Sometimes we take him down to the fountain in front of the library for his bath. We’ll put him in, and he’ll swim around, then he’ll get out; the granite outside gets really hot, and he just soaks it up.”
Walker said she feeds Elvis cherry tomatoes as a treat and an enticement to play games.
“He’ll do a lot of things for a tomato,” she said.
Walker said she also takes care of less charismatic creatures, such as cockroaches; guppies; tree frogs; sirens, which are amphibians without hind legs; and other specimens. Most are used in student labs, she said.
One tank of guppies is equipped with a camera so that online students can participate in behavioral lab exercises. The goldfishes she cares for are used to feed the government-protected alligator snapping turtle on display.
Fox, a behavioral ecologist specializing in reptiles and amphibians, supervises the collection of snakes on display on the ground floor. He said the display, which has existed since he began teaching at OSU 31 years ago, will help educate the public about how to tell the difference between harmless and potentially dangerous species.
“Lots of people see a snake and assume it’s venomous, but for the most part they’re not,” he said.
Fox said the difference is the shape of a snake’s head, comparing the arrowhead-shaped head of the department’s western diamondback rattlesnake with the sleek neck of the harmless king snake, both safely behind glass.
“I want to have native stuff, so that people can come in and see for themselves the characteristics that distinguish venomous snakes … so they can see, not in a picture, but the real animal,” he said.
Professor Loren Smith, head of the zoology department, said not all of the animals kept by the department are on display. Some are used for research projects, such as one experiment involving the immunization of birds and how it affects their growth.
Fox said the building is open to the public throughout the week and encouraged students and families to visit the displays.
He said the department is considering adding a collared lizard, the state lizard also known as a “mountain boomer,” to its collection.
“It’s not venomous and it’s not dangerous, but it’s a very big, colorful, interesting lizard,” he said. “It’s not rocket science … We’ve got nice displays for educational purposes, and people like animals.”
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