Digitizing collections is an important initiative at Carnegie Museum of Natural History as well as many other museums across the country.
The image above is of a Tropidurus spinulosus specimen that was taken by Kaylin Martin, a curatorial assistant in the Section of Herpetology, and uploaded to iDigBio.org, an online research database.
Kaylin uses brand new photography equipment purchased with funds from a recent National Science Foundation grant. The grant will help the museum maintain and improve its historic Alcohol House, which is home to about 250,000 amphibian and reptile specimens that are preserved in jars.
Kaylin Martin is a curatorial assistant in the Section of Herpetology. She blogs about the collection in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s historic Alcohol House, which is home to thousands of fluid-preserved specimens.