The National Systematics Laboratory (NSL) is one of the six research laboratories administered
by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, but serves as the taxonomic research arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service as a whole.
NSLâs small
staff of zoologists, museum specialists, and technicians is located in the National Museum of
Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, a location connected to the founding of the Fisheries Service in 1871 by the museumâs first curator and later Smithsonian
Secretary, Spencer Baird. NSL staff work closely with museum colleagues and specimens.
The Laboratory describes and names new species, and revises existing descriptions and names based on new information, of fishes, squids, crustaceans, and corals of economic or ecological importance to the United States.
Links:
[1] https://2014-2017.commerce.gov/locations/nefsc-national-systematics-laboratory-nsl
[2] http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nsl/