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LFL COLLECTION POLICIES AND PROCEDURES MANUAL 11 Destructive Sampling LFL seeks to minimize destruction or alteration of preserved specimens but recognizes that such is sometimes the only practical means for acquiring certain types of information. Requests for destructive or specimen-altering uses may be rejected when alternative, less destructive techniques are available for acquiring the desired information or when the proposed use involves rare or endangered species, specimens representing rare occurrences, or taxa or life stages that are poorly represented in the LFL Collection. For specimens retained under the authority of depositing agencies or persons, written permission by a responsible representative of that agency or that person must be obtained before requests for their destructive use can be approved. In the selection of specimens for destructive uses, LFL will avoid sacrificing all available specimens of a taxon from a specific collecting event. For most experimental or educational purposes requiring destructive techniques, specimens are selected from taxa and life stages in plentiful supply, preferably from study collections. Tissue extracted for DNA, RNA, and other molecular analyses should be taken in the smallest practical quantity and, when possible, using tissues of least diagnostic or morphological interest on the right side of the fish. Except as otherwise approved by the curator, specimens that have been cleared and stained for examination of internal structures, partially dissected, or otherwise altered are to be returned with any excised body parts (e.g., digestive tracts and contents; pharyngeal teeth, otoliths, scales) to the LFL curator for future re-examination or additional study. Altered specimens should not be returned to their original lot, but rather stored individually or in groups (when size or other characters sufficiently differentiate them) in separate containers with appropriate preservatives and well annotated labels. When possible, excised body parts should be stored together with the specimens from which they were removed. Small capsules or vials can be use inside individual specimen containers to hold very small body parts, gut contents, or parasites. Excised parts such as pharyngeal teeth should be returned to their proper location in the body if they can be adequately held in place. Sometimes excised body parts must be permanently mounted or otherwise prepared and maintained independent of the remainder of the specimen. Labels prepared by the user for new specimen containers or special preparations must include the original lot catalog number and designations linking individual specimens and any separately prepared parts to each other as well as to associated data, illustrations, or images. Unused or unaltered specimens should be returned to their original lot or loan containers with supplemental labels indicating how many specimens were removed to other containers or preparations and a list of user designations identifying those individual specimens and the recorded data derived from them. With prior approval by the curator, specimen remains that are not likely to retain sufficient value to warrant continued curation may be discarded. All changes in specimen counts, preservation, preparation, condition, and storage, including their excised parts, must be documented on return-loan invoices or memoranda and submitted to the curator along with copies of associated data and illustrative material extracted from those specimens. After acknowledgement of receipt of borrowed or used-on-site collections and associated documentation involving changes discussed above, the curator makes appropriate deaccessions, other changes in original catalog records, labels, and collection files, and recatalogs displaced specimens or the parts thereof under new, but linked, catalog numbers.