a journal of my ant life

Unfortunately I missed Phil Ward’s lecture on the Course about specimen codes. I may borrow other participant’s hand out about this, but I think I better devise my own codes.

My specimen codes indicates my identity, date of collection, place or session of collection on that day, the vial in which the specimen initially stored, and collecting method/microhabitat.

The example is this:

N5804026TR

I use the number "0" to separate between code numbers. So:
N = my initial letter
58 = the collection day which I assigned as the collection day no. 58
4 = place/session which I assign as place/session no. 4 on that day
26 = vial no.26 on that day and place/session
TR = hand collected from a tree

This code will be placed in the alcohol vial. The record on the NOTES CATALOGUE would be:

Collection day record:
58. 18 September 2006
Place/session record:
4. University of Indonesia Campus, West Java Indonesia. 123 123" 123′ S 123 123" 123′ E. Morning.
Specific notes:
- Crematogaster (vial 6) seen fighting with Tetraponera
- Vial 9 is Tetramorium colony from arboreal hollow twig

The entry in NOTES CATALOGUE is created after the sorting process.

After the mounting and/or identification process, more numbers will be added to the sorted alcohol specimens and the mounted specimens. I will put specimens presumably of the same colony in one alcohol vial in which I put a label like this:

N5804026TR3

The meaning is the same as above specimen code, but I add a number following it.
3 = the species (morphospecies) no. 3 in the vial

In the mounted specimen, I may add an alphabet which signify the identity of the mounted specimens, e.g.:

N5804026TR3C

C = mounted specimen C

But I don’t know if I can fit this code in the small label paper.

After the mounting and identification process, I record the specimen on the GENERAL CATALOGUE. And the entry would be like this:

N5804026TR3. Meranoplus 9. 24 workers, 5 pupae, 2 larvae. Mounted: 3 (A - C) single pins. Observations: LAB page 62; FIELD page 92.

LAB OBSERVATION and FIELD OBSERVATION hold records of observations made in the respective places. LAB OBSERVATION may contains drawings, morphological notes, comparisons. FIELD OBSERVATION will be rewritten from field notes and from field audio log.

I may want to make SPECIES NOTES which may contain all the information I observed about every species I encountered, but this is a huge task. I would have to try out making the other RECORDS first (FIELD OBSERVATION, NOTES CATALOGUE, GENERAL CATALOGUE, LAB OBSERVATION).

Nice planning. I hope I’m not lazy to do this. Help me God..