What happens if the type specimen is lost, damaged, or destroyed?
Unfortunately, these accidents do happen to type specimens, despite the safeguards that museums employ to protect them. Some types may be damaged through use (study) or the effects of exposure and time, but others have been lost to building damage and the destruction caused by war. In these instances, scientists can designate another specimen (the neotype, see above) to serve as the new holotype. However, many times there are no other specimens available—the holotypes of the theropod dinosaurs Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and Bahariasaurus ingens are good examples, having been destroyed in an Allied bombing attack on Munich in World War II. The only option is to rely on the descriptions, photographs, and drawings of these specimens (which ideally formed the original description) as proxies for the types. Surviving casts may also be used.
