Destructive Analysis -- Permission is required before any permanent alteration of a specimen for purposes of dissection, clearing and staining, SEM, TEM, or tissue sampling is allowed. You must obtain written permission from the Research Zoologist in charge of the desired taxa. Any such preparations made must be returned with the parent specimen.
Confirmation of species identification is strongly recommended before destructive use of a specimen.
To assist us in evaluating such requests for destructive analysis please provide the following:
A brief description of your project
Justification for the use of USNM specimens
Some indication that the technique applied or sample taken is indeed appropriate to the question being asked
What anatomical region of the specimen will be altered
Once sampling permission is granted by the Research Zoologist in charge of the desired taxa, submit a sampling request using the IZ Loan Request Form. All sequences resulting from use of tissues removed from USNM specimens must be deposited in GenBank. When depositing the sequences, you must cite the USNM catalog number of the specimen from which the tissue was removed. GenBank accession numbers must be reported to IZ and a pdf of each paper resulting from the study of the sampled material must be sent to the Collection Manager.
