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Collections - Fish Maps

What is a Lot?

If collected, this Eastern Frogfish would be a lot which contains one specimen.

A school of Striped Catfish. If collected this lot would contain many specimens.

Fishes in the Australian Museum Fish Collection are counted in number of specimens and number of lots. The number of specimens count is an obvious way to assess the size of the collection. The number of lots is another measure of collection size that is often used in natural history collections.

A lot is any number of specimens of the same species collected at the same place and time, by the same collectors, using the same method. For example, the Eastern Frogfish collected by hand net at 5m off Lady Jane Beach, Sydney Harbour by Carson-Ewart and Parkinson on 18 March 1998 is a lot (AMS I.38734-014). Likewise, 27 specimens of Striped Catfish collected at Bobbin Head by B.Rose on 7 April 1970 is a lot (AMS I.15665-001).

A collection of one million specimens and only 10 lots, obviously contains an enormous number of specimens of a few species from few locations. Conversely a collection such as the Australian Museum Fish Collection which contains one million specimens and over 140,000 lots has much more diversity in number of species, collecting localities and dates of collection.

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