The Bohart Museum relies on donations to thrive. Specimens from hundreds of donors, large and small, are found in our collection. Contact the museum if you or someone you know would like to donate their collection of insects. You may be eligible for a substantial tax deduction (see your tax accountant). Specimens in accepted collections must have location data associated with them. Donors of large collections may be solicited for funds to help us incorporate the specimens into our main collection.
Vouchering
Vouchering specimens collected for experiments and surveys is an essential component of studying insects in the field and laboratory. As a repository of scientific material we can accept vouchers. However, because we have limited resources to process and store material, vouchers must meet the following requirements:
- Have appropriately sized and complete locality, determination, and voucher labels that are printed on archival material and are on every single specimen at the time of vouchering. Templates can be provided for some of these label types if needed.
- Are identified to the level used in the experiment and reported in the article. Unidentified surplus specimens will not be accepted.
- Are curated according to modern standards for their group, e.g. are pinned, or in ethanol vials, carded envelopes, slide mounted, etc. Note that we can only store dry or ethanol-preserved material at room temperature. No cold storage for tissue samples is currently available.
- For pinned material, are accompanied by Cal Academy-sized drawers and unit trays. You can easily purchase research-grade drawers and units from vendors such as Ecology Supplies.
- Specimens in ethanol must be stored individually in vials. 1 dram snapcaps (shell vials) are recommended, but if necessary smaller or larger vials can be used if the length of the vial does not exceed 80mm, but each vial must contain a full set of labels.
All vouchering requests must be approved in advance of material being received. All material abandoned without a vouchering agreement or not meeting the above standards is subject to disposal without notice.
All specimens must be identified as specifically as possible. This is because we cannot set aside special space for unidentified material or specimens from particular locations, projects, or scientists. All specimens will need to be added to the general collection, which is organized by taxon. Only endangered/extinct taxa and name-bearing types, which by definition are identified to at least species, are physically separated from the general collection.