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| Make sure you distinguish your records from those of these US botanists one hundred years ago: write '2015', not just '15' for the year. |
Each specimen you submit should be labelled with the date you collected it.
You want to make this as unambiguous as you can.
In Britain, we usually write the date in the form Day : Month : Year. so 1/4/2015 means the first of April.
But Americans tend to put Month : Day : Year. 1/4/2015 meaning the fourth of January.
Some people even put the Year first (I know, how crazy can you get): 2015/4/1 - and who knows what on earth that's supposed to indicate.
So to be clear, I suggest you use this format:
the day as a number, the month in words, and the year in full:
1 Apr 2015.
Here's a hypothetical label you might stick in with a snail. Obviously yours would be beautifully neat.
You can see I've got two dates, one for the Col (collected by) date, and one for the Det (determined by) date. The date it was determined (that is, identified) isn't so important, so just gets the year.
You may rightly consider this double-date business overkill, but it is an example of what might happen if a specimen were sent away for a specialist to identify. Or perhaps if a collection were very old and a museum curator was going through it checking the identifications and updating the names.
Noting 'When' is not just about good administration. It can help you (and your marker) identify your species.
This year I saw an adult Rose Chafer beetle (Cetonia aurata). The adults are only present in the summer, from May until July. The beetle's lifecycle takes two years though: the rest of the time it exists as a larva feeding underground. Therefore, if I labelled my beetle with a February date, you can be fairly sure I've either misidentified it, or that global warming must be really speeding up now.
Read on for the final element of your labels - the 'who'.
In Britain, we usually write the date in the form Day : Month : Year. so 1/4/2015 means the first of April.
But Americans tend to put Month : Day : Year. 1/4/2015 meaning the fourth of January.
Some people even put the Year first (I know, how crazy can you get): 2015/4/1 - and who knows what on earth that's supposed to indicate.
So to be clear, I suggest you use this format:
the day as a number, the month in words, and the year in full:
1 Apr 2015.
Here's a hypothetical label you might stick in with a snail. Obviously yours would be beautifully neat.
You can see I've got two dates, one for the Col (collected by) date, and one for the Det (determined by) date. The date it was determined (that is, identified) isn't so important, so just gets the year.
You may rightly consider this double-date business overkill, but it is an example of what might happen if a specimen were sent away for a specialist to identify. Or perhaps if a collection were very old and a museum curator was going through it checking the identifications and updating the names.
Noting 'When' is not just about good administration. It can help you (and your marker) identify your species.
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| Image CC by Chrumps |
Read on for the final element of your labels - the 'who'.
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