The Frozen Zoo

Today we talked with Maryls Houck and Marco Wendt of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo. Maryls is the Curator of the Frozen Zoo, while Marco is the spokesperson for the alliance. The Frozen Zoo is the largest collection of living cell lines in the world. The specimens are currently all vertebrates: birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. To date there have been 11,600 individuals, 1,300 species and subspecies collected over the Zoo’s 50 year history. The zoo has been pivotal in cloning Przewalski’s horse, bringing diversity back to the the black-footed ferret population also through cloning, and more.

The conversations delve into a wealth of topics including genetic rescue, how specimens are collected, the struggle in figuring out of where in each animal collections should be taken, how the living cells are maintained, what it means to be a species and more. Further Maryls talks about what it’s like being a woman in STEM, and talks about her history,

There is a lot in this one, and we were honored to be invited to speak with both Maryls and Marco.

Please consider donating to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance by visiting their donation page.

Recorded on 11.20.25

Pertinent Links:
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance: https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org
San Diego Zoo: https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org
San Diego Zoo Safari Park: https://sdzsafaripark.org
Maryles Houck ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3879-9511