[NHCOLL-L:869] Request on dolphin

[Cindy Ramotnik]

The following request was originally posted on the Conservation DistList
and, with the permission of the author, David Gray, I am forwarding it
to this listserver. Please respond directly to David as he is not
subscribed to NHCOLL-L.

Thanks,
Cindy 
 
Date: 24 Jan 2001
From: David Gray <d.gray at nhm.ac.uk>
Subject: Dolphin

We have a 50 year old dolphin specimen in our collections in need of
treatment. Parts of the skin that have rested on the shelf have fat
oozing through them. It has been suggested that to remove the
fat--the areas should be swabbed with acetone and any residual
solution soaked up with a sepiolite.

If anyone has used this technique I would be interested to know how
well it worked and if anyone can supply another method or reference
to other methods I would be very grateful.

The specimen is a complete skin, sewn along the ventral midline from
tailstock to base of skull. The specimen is now known to contain at
least
part of the skull. The upper and lower jaws plus dentition are visible
but
it is not clear if the cranial bones are present (though this is
likely).
The outline of the bones of both pectoral flippers are also visible
through
the skin. Most of our other small cetacean skins prepared at a similar
point in time
were stuffed with straw or wood-wool.  I suspect this will be the case
here. 

David.R.Gray
Conservation Scientist
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD
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