type specimen images

[Peter Rauch]

Just to be sure what you are seeking to achieve, ...

Is the idea to allow people to "see the general form of a specimen" as
you state, or "of a species", or "of a type specimen"?

E.g., the type specimen might not be the best one to convey "general form
of the species". Or, how valuable is it to see the "general form" of
a type or of a specimen? E.g., relative to the amount of work put into
digitizing the image, how many people would need to see a "general form"
image of the type rather than any number of other specimens that might
not only convey a better "gestalt" of the species' general form, but might
also depict other examples of interesting (gross) characteristics that
have already been published (and in particular, figured) for the type?

Doesn't much revisionary and descriptive work revolve around examining
new, previously unstudied, unexamined  material? Why spend yet more
time (_first_) on making types available (in such a "gross" way)?

And, while one might have some question about whether they've examined
an arbitrary specimen during some revisionary work, I doubt that they'll
forget whether they've examined the type (and would need to "examine" it's
general form).

I think online images of specimens have a place (without saying what that
is), so I'm not arguing here against such. But, I guess I'd like to think
that there's a lot more to it than "general form of types". Is there?
Peter

>Date:         Thu, 12 Oct 1995 11:51:57 -0400
>From: "Shawn Landry (BIO)" <landry at CHUMA.CAS.USF.EDU>

>We need your comments regarding images of type specimens which we are
>planning to place online.

>...  but we do feel that these images would be
>valuable for people who need to see the general form of a specimen.