title: Preserving and vouchering butterflies and moths for large-scale museum-based molecular research.
abstract: Butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) comprise significant portions of the world's natural history collections, but a standardized tissue preservation protocol for molecular research is largely lacking. Lepidoptera have traditionally been spread on mounting boards to display wing patterns and colors, which are often important for species identification. Many molecular phylogenetic studies have used legs from pinned specimens as the primary source for DNA in order to preserve a morphological voucher, but the amount of available tissue is often limited. Preserving an entire specimen in a cryogenic freezer is ideal for DNA preservation, but without an easily accessible voucher it can make specimen identification, verification, and morphological work difficult. Here we present a procedure that creates accessible and easily visualized "wing vouchers" of individual Lepidoptera specimens, and preserves the remainder of the insect in a cryogenic freezer for molecular research. Wings are preserved in protective holders so that both dorsal and ventral patterns and colors can be easily viewed without further damage. Our wing vouchering system has been implemented at the University of Maryland (AToL Lep Collection) and the University of Florida (Florida Museum of Natural History, McGuire Center of Lepidoptera and Biodiversity), which are among two of the largest Lepidoptera molecular collections in the world.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, South Korea.|Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Soowon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
authors.forename: Samantha W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Epstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mitter
authors.affiliation: Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
authors.forename: Chris A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.affiliation: Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Plotkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mitter
authors.affiliation: Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
authors.forename: Akito Y
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Kawahara
keywords: Biodiversity; Genomics; Lepidoptera; Museum; Natural history collections; Taxonomy