type specimens
Defining biological examples
Type specimens are the original examples used to formally describe and name a species in biology.
When scientists identify a new species, they designate one individual organism—preserved, photographed, or otherwise documented—as the reference standard against which all future identifications are compared.
Museums hold these specimens as permanent records: The type specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex resides at the Carnegie Museum.
In typography, type specimens are sample sheets or booklets displaying a typeface's characters across various sizes and weights.
- voucherRedeemable certificate for value
- ICZNZoological nomenclature authority
- original descriptionFirst instance of depiction
- variantsDiffering forms of something
- museum specimensObjects kept for study/display
natural history museum · taxonomy · typification · botany · species identification · zoology · mounted · formalin · systematics · label · herbarium · original · drawer · preserved · collection · jar · fossil · pinned
- natural historynatural history, natural history museum, naturalist, naturalists, natural philosophers
- fossilsdinosaur bones, ammonite, amber, ammonites, fossils
- printing historyprinting press, Gutenberg, typographers, Gutenberg press, block printing
- entomologyentomology, butterfly net, insect net, insect behavior, insect identification
- insect taxonomyLepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, genus, species
- taxonomygenus, species, taxon, kingdom, phylum
type, prototype, specimen, stereotype, archetype, stereotyped, stereotypical, stereotyping, prototypes