Allotypes

[Steve at]

There are about 30,000 described species of ants.  I've yet to see more than
a token handful labelled as 'allotype'.  Therefore the statement 'allotypes
are housed in the type collections, with red labels like holotypes, and are
pretty much *treated* like holotypes' doesn't apply to this group.

As for the treatment of types in this collection, we don't maintain a
separate type collection, everything is in one spot.  Within the ant
collection, a type
is a type and they are all treated as very special things, placed in their
own units and handled with special care.  (In all too many cases we have
syntype series and it is safer to treat all of these as potential holotypes.)

Steve Shattuck
Australian National Insect Collection
CSIRO, Div. of Entomology
P. O. Box 1700
Canberra, ACT  2601, Australia
phone (06) 246-4273, fax (06) 246-4264
steves at ento.csiro.au