Abstract
A new mechanical innovation is described to deal with standard labelling of dried specimens on triangular cards and/or pinned specimens in personal and public collections. It works quickly, precisely, and easily and is very useful for maintaining label uniformity in collections. The tools accurately sets the position of labels in the shortest possible time. This tools has advantages including rapid processing, cost effectiveness, light weight, and high accuracy, compared to conventional methods. It is fully customisable, compact, and does not require specialist equipment to assemble. Conventional methods generally require locating holes on the pinning block surface when labelling with a resulting risk to damage of the specimens. Insects of different orders can be labelled by this simple and effective tool.
Highlights
IntroductionNatural history museums (and even some personal collections) stand out as some of the most invaluable repositories of biological information
Natural history museums stand out as some of the most invaluable repositories of biological information
Millions of pinned insect specimens are housed in natural history collections on a global scale
Summary
Natural history museums (and even some personal collections) stand out as some of the most invaluable repositories of biological information. They are an important resource for preserve voucher specimens underpinning studies in taxonomy, ecology and related fields (Winker 2004, Turney et al 2015). The position, and end ease of reading of specimen labels is important to the usefulness of biological collections. These specimens are preserved in different ways (ethanol, microscope slides, point card and plastic envelopes). Millions of pinned insect specimens are housed in natural history collections on a global scale. The pinned insect collection of the Canadian National Collection of Insects (CNC) contains approximately 16 million specimens systematically arranged in 1400 steel cabinets (see Canacoll 2016). Gibb (2014) stated that: “If reference materials are unorganized or difficult to access, they will not be used regularly and their value depreciates measurably”; the value of standard specimens for insect collection provides optimum protection and ease of access for the valuable specimens and make the observation of individual specimens easy without removing them each time
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