Accession number

The unique identifier a collection assigns to a specimen when it is taken in; written on the specimen and every label and never re-used. A museum's accession number (USNM 4734) is the specimen's permanent citation.

Sources

SPNHC — Collection care resources
Collins, C. (ed.) (1995). The Care and Conservation of Palaeontological Material

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Accession number" (Glossary). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/glossary/accession-number. Accessed 2026-09-20.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-accession-number,
  title        = {Accession number},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/glossary/accession-number}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Glossary article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.