[Nhcoll-l] many specimens in one jar

[Douglas Yanega]

On 12/6/22 11:44 PM, Lennart Lennuk wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> What is your practices preserving many specimens in one jar. It is 
> quite impossible to mark them all with ID ohter than butting every 
> specimen separately into glasstube. What might be the problems if 
> there are for example 10 individuals of Palaemon in one jar and the 
> ID-s are only on the main label?
>
>
> Should we count each individual as specimen or should we take them as 
> unit and describe in database how many individuals one unit holds?
>
This is extremely common in insect collections, in addition to multiple 
specimens on a single microscope slide, and multiple specimens on a 
single insect pin.

The procedure we follow is fairly straightforward: so long as all 
specimens are the same taxon, there is only a single database record 
with a GUID for that vial/slide/pin, stating the number of specimens 
(the database has fields so, e.g., it can list 3 females, 5 males, and 2 
larvae all in the same record). If there are multiple taxa *and they 
cannot be physically curated separately* - such as a predatory wasp 
pinned above a prey item fly - then what we do is create semi-duplicate 
records using the same GUID, for which there is no other workaround. 
While having records UCRC_ENT_388451a and UCRC_ENT_388451b is pretty 
much a violation of the principle of a GUID, it's unavoidable in some 
cases. Mercifully, out of over 550,000 records in our database, there 
have been only ~150 semi-duplicate sets like this so far, mostly vials 
that can eventually be split and given separate GUIDs, and around 30 
slides/pins that can't.

Peace,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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