The taxonomic importance of the specimens preserved in any museum has been established. The genetic study of the genes preserved in the muscles and tissues of the taxidermy skin of the museum specimens has led to the hypothesis of evolutionary theories in the field of biology. In the museum collection some of the species have been preserved for long and have a scope of reidentification, because such species have been wrongly identified. The Natural History section of the State Museum, Lucknow has a rich collection of avian diversity. George Reid the first incharge of Natural History Section in 1890 mentioned 783 species (as per Nineteenth Century taxonomy), represented by 5,360 specimens. Zarrin, 2023 has listed 780 different species of birds preserved in the collection. But this is not the final list as there is a vast scope of verification and re identification. Modern research has revealed that barcode analysis may produce the final data and it is a boon for identification of species. Author co-supervised research conducted during 2011- 16 on the avian specimens preserved in the State Museum Lucknow and during the documentation of the specimens of the natural history collection of the State Museum, Lucknow a new species– Pink Headed Duck was re identified. At the time of verification, the specimen was found labelled as Spot billed duck. The same species was documented by George Ried in his catalogue of Avian collection of State Museum Lucknow, published in 1886. He revised the catalogue in 1890. In Salim Ali, 1960 prepared a list of Museums of world, where the specimen of Pink Headed Duck is preserved, but he has not mentioned the State Museum, Lucknow. This species is categorized as critically endangered under the IUCN list of species. According to Birdlife Data zone this species has not been conclusively seen in the wild since 1949. Like this species there are a number of species going towards extinction every day. The rate of extinction is much higher than the identification. Less than 10% of the total number of species present in the world has been identified till date. Identifying a species with its morphological character is now talk of the past, because it is time taking as well as not very accurate. There is rapid extinction of species due to various factors involved. It is an urgent need of the hour to document the species diversity as much as possible. DNA is the unique marker for each species and it will prove a revolutionary method if we document genetic diversity of maximum species. It will consume less time in comparison to traditional morphological and physiological identification of species. An International consortium of Barcode has been signed by several countries. This International scientific network will create a library of DNA sequences or Barcodes that is unique to each species. This library will provide a means to identify organisms rapidly and inexpensively, even from fragmentary remains. In this research the taxidermy specimens preserved in different Museums will be a resource pool. Another important aspect of genomic research is the research and analysis of historical RNA (coding type: m-RNA, t-RNA and noncoding type: mi-RNA) of preserved specimens. Scientists from Stockholm University, the Arctic University of Norway, Lund University and Karolinska Institute have extracted, sequenced and analyzed historical RNA from muscles and skin tissue of 130-year- old Thylacines cynocephalus preserved in desiccation room temperature in Stockholm Museum collection. Such researches can be initiated on pan India basis. It will definitely be a revolution in the field of Cytology, Genomics, Taxonomy and other allied branches of Biology. The avian specimens preserved in Indian Natural History Museums can be a resource pool for creating Library of DNA sequences or barcoding as well as research and analysis of RNA.
