[Nhcoll-l] Why retain physical specimens

[Doug Yanega]

On 9/26/19 10:59 AM, Sarah K. Huber wrote:
Recently I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about why our collection should retain a physical specimen once it has been digitized (e.g., CT-scanned, photographed, x-rayed, etc.). I’m curious how often other museum professionals are asked this question and what your general responses are for justifying the retention of a physical specimen. Why do you tell people it’s important to retain a specimen?


(1) you can't extract DNA from a digital record

(2) you can't retrieve or dissect tissues or internal organs from a digital record

(3) you can't retrieve internal or external microbiota (bacteria, fungi, viruses) from a digital record

(4) you can't retrieve or dissect gut contents from a digital record

(5) you can't do toxicological or pesticide residue tests on a digital record

(6) you need a physical specimen to properly describe something as a new species

There's more, of course, but these are all significant, especially item #1 and #6.

--
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20190926/b8b97bb2/attachment.html>