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- Graduate students and faculty should be aware of their responsibility
to deposit in the NCSU
Insect Collection (or another institution) voucher specimens of
the insects they research.
- Individuals embarking on studies that call for voucher specimens should
plan carefully before the work is initiated. Such planning should involve
direct consultation with entomologists knowledgeable in collection,
identification, preservation, and storage of such specimens. When in
doubt if vouchers are needed, individuals should check with the Curators
of the NCSU Insect Collection.
- For each specimen studied, a short series of specimens, perhaps 10
of each sex, is preferable to a single specimen or to hundreds of duplicate
specimens which take up valuable space in a collection. Each specimen
must be correctly prepared and bear a special voucher label (available
from the curators, NCSU
Insect Collection) clearly linking it to a specific research project,
as well as an identification label and all the standard collection data
(country and locality, date, collector or researcher, and such information
as the host/source, etc.).
- Once a year persons maintaining laboratory cultures used for research
must preserve a few vouchers of all cultures and submit them to the NCSU
Insect Collection.
- Theses and research manuscripts for publication must indicate where
vouchers have been deposited and the names of the specialists who have
identified material. Referees and graduate advisory committees should
insist that authors include such statements in their works, except in
the case of a very well-known species which are unlikely to be misidentified.
Even in the latter case, however, voucher specimens must be preserved
so that future entomologists can substantiate results.
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Voucher
Specimens