A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, Collins authored 27 books and over 300 articles on wildlife, of which about 250 were on amphibians and reptiles.
[4] After high school, he attended the University of Cincinnati where he, by his own admission, lacked direction even though he had already started publishing scholarly scientific works at the age of 19.
[4] In 1967, he was hired as a vertebrate preparator by the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, where he worked for 30 years.
His most famous book is A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, Fourth Edition, which he coauthored with Roger Conant.
In 1991, Collins released a new third edition to the names list in which he "...unilaterally changed from committee chairperson to author.
[7][8] This created widespread controversy and debate among herpetologists, and he was removed as chair after production of the fourth edition in 1997.
[7] By 2009 there was serious strife about the conflicting versions of the names list,[9] and Herpetologica published a series of SAs[clarification needed] approaching the issue.
[10][11][12] Despite the controversy and debate, the vast majority of changes recommended by Collins were ultimately supported by the molecular evidence.