 |
 |
The Invertebrate Collection is now estimated to contain over 90,000 pinned and labeled specimens plus approximately 500 specimens mounted on slides and nearly 2,000 vials containing varying numbers of specimens that are permanently stored in this way (total of approximately 92,500 specimens in arranged collection). The pinned collection is stored in about 20 steel cabinets, the slides in standard (100-slide) boxes on open shelves, and the vials in larger jars on shelves.
The 20 steel cabinets are of one-door design with a 25-drawer capacity. Dimensions of the drawers are 19 1/4 x 19 1/4 x 2 7/8 inches. They are built of wood with wood-framed glass tops. Within the drawers, specimens are arranged in cardboard unit trays with polyethylene foam bottoms. The basic unit tray is 2 1/16 x 2 1/16 x 2 inches deep; others are twice as wide, twice as large in both dimensions, or 8 times as large (8 per drawer).
The diversity of this collection is comprised mainly of insects although the museum has a fairly large collection of crawfish and other invertebrates.
With the addition of Dr. Pollock in fall 2001, the invertebrate collection has seen significant increases in determination of insects to the species level and general sorting of the massive collection. At the present we have over 7,000 specimens databased which will be available to other researchers in the future.
