At 04:40 PM 8/4/95 -0700, Peter Rauch wrote:

Not to detract from anything Peter said, but I think a more simple minded answer is to be found in the handling/storage requirements of the specimens. Non-terrestrial invertebrates are typically stored in containers (=lots) of alcohol, whereas (most) insects are individually pinned. How would one physically create/denote (and then determine) the boundary for a lot of individually pinned insects? Pin all members of a lot in a single box? Presumably this wastes too much space. Label them all with the same lot number? Well, if you're going to number them all, why not give them all individual numbers? Numbers are cheap.

And in response to a previous comment concerning the ECN standard, maximum-of-six-digit, identifying number (adding another digit requires another megabyte of disk storage space)... At today's prices of 40 cents a megabyte, I still say numbers are cheap.

If it's worth looking at, describing, and then _keeping_ (presumably so someone else might look at it), isn't it worth numbering?

/Stan

PS As institutions typically contain more than a single collection (e.g., USNM), some kind of collection-within-institution "acronym" must me added to make specimen numbers unique, at least from a global perspective. I don't have the ECN standard in hand, but if it doesn't specify such a code, I think it would be wise to add one in the next revision.