Why are specimens important?
Specimens serve many functions...
At the most fundamental level, they provide evidence that a species occurred at a particular time and place. This allows us to examine geographic changes over time in animal populations, species and communities and to relate those patterns to natural or human-induced changes in the environment (e.g. climate change, landscape alteration, etc.).
Specimens and associated data (e.g. field notes of habitat, recordings of song, reproductive and age information, etc.) provide basic information on natural history traits of animals.
Museum specimens provide important baseline information for studies of conservation and emerging diseases ( e.g. hantavirus, West Nile Virus) by looking at how they change over time.