This thread has turned out to be valuable in order to illustrate some of the quirks of the Zoological Code in a lighthearted way. How about that! I'm glad (some of) you enjoyed the song. Ferreter asks if it is painful to become a type specimen. It's usually fatal, true, but it is not always painful. Zoologists who study the soft parts of mollusks and other marine creatures generally anaesthetize them first using menthol, warm water, progressively freshened water, and other means. A relaxed animal is so much easier to study than one which has curled up into a puckered lump. Or one which has retreated into its shell. In "The Erotic Ocean", a book about the common nearshore creatures of northwest Florida, Jack Rudloe describes the different methods that are needed to anaesthetize and preserve each group of animals. A method that works well for one group may be no good for another. And in the old days, when preservation techniques were not well developed, it was altogether impossible to preserve some species. Think of nudibranchs, for example. Therefore, under the Code, an illustration of an animal can be accepted as representing the type specimen, even if the specimen no longer exists (ICZN, Articles 12b(7), 74c). This rule has a cut-off date of December 31, 1930; in 1931 and after, an illustration is not sufficient documentation for a new species. A description is now required. I don't know how many molluscan species were originally based on illustrations, but the number must be fairly large for the early days. Does anyone have any idea? Thus, to extend Gary Rosenberg's comments, we can accept not only human remains, but also *illustrations* of any person known to Linnaeus up to 1758, as representing the type series of Homo sapiens. Linnaeus was certainly known to himself, so he must be in the type series, and we do have portraits of him. It wasn't painful for him. Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama