[NHCOLL-L:3314] Two questions about fluid collections

[Chris Conroy]

Hi,

      Two questions about fluid collections.

1. Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced portable hydrometer, to 
check ethanol concentrations in place in collections?  We have about 
247,000 herps, 17,000 mammals, and 3,300 birds in fluid and it would 
be great to check concentration in the collection without moving 
them. Many of our jars are quite small, too small for our floating 
hydrometer. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

2. We recently acquired a large (800) collection of herps that were 
preserved in denatured ethanol. Is anyone familiar with the long-term 
effects of this as a preservative, both for morphology and DNA?  Many 
of the specimens are tadpoles, and only a few have been fixed in 
formalin. At the moment, all look fine.  Does anyone have a protocol 
for changing from 80% denatured ethanol to 95% ethanol, or to 
formalin?

Please respond off list and I can send a summary back to NHColl.

Thanks,

Chris Conroy
-- 
Chris J. Conroy
ondatra at berkeley.edu


Staff Curator of Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
3101 Valley Life Sciences Building
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
http://mvz.berkeley.edu/
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ondatra/