Cataloguing shells

[paul monfils]

The most important piece of information is the locality where the specimen was collected, in as much detail as possible.  Just "Philippines" or "northern Australia" is better than nothing, but not much better.  Something like "Balabac, Palawan, Philippines, in sand under dead coral slab, 15 feet deep in reef lagoon, April 1998" is much better.  Locality data is much more important than the species identification. The ID can be supplied later by anyone knowledgeable about such matters.  The locality, unless recorded at the time of collection and carefully preserved by subsequent workers, is lost forever, and with it much of the scientific value of the specimen.  However, if your labels are that small, it might be best to simply note the species name and a catalogue number, and to record the locality and other information in a written catalog or data base, under the same catalog number.