Museums Of Entomology: A well-curated collection is an efficient way to identify potential pests

摘要

As a rice farmer, if you've seen one rice water weevil, you've probably seen them all. However, when an insect .shows up that farmers, consultants, Extension personnel, USDA or other industry folks don't recognize, then it's time to solicit the iden-tification and diagnostic services of an entomology museum. These museums house millions of specimens that have been collected over a long period of time and are still being collected today. This resource is much like a big library. The individual specimens represent pages in a giant library of books. The data associated with those pages is the "text" that goes along with them.