[Nhcoll-l] Dermestid colony

[Alexandra Snyder]

As you have noted, dermestid beetle colonies should never be anywhere near museum collections (typically they are kept in a separate building or on the roof top of the museum) but with limited space and funding, good museum practice is often difficult to achieve.  One method of containment that I saw in practice at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was to have trenches full of "tanglefoot" surrounding the room in which the colonies are maintained. You may want to contact them for further details.


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Alexandra M Snyder, Collections Manager-Fishes
Museum of Southwestern Biology MSC03-2020
University of New Mexico Albuquerque NM 87131
PH./FAX 505.277.6005     amsnyder at unm.edu
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From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] on behalf of David Dyer [DDyer at ohiohistory.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 8:17 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Dermestid colony

Greetings,

I am planning to start a dermestid colony for skeletal preparation. In my last position I operated a large and active colony that was isolated in a separate room and down the hall from the collections storage.  However at this museum it looks like the only option will be in the lab and office space that is directly next to the collections storage.  Has anyone come up with a safe way to operate a colony to minimize escapees and potential harm to the collections? We had a pretty strict protocol for the dermestid colony in my last job and had very few, if any, problems in many years of operation. However, I need a fool-proof system to also keep our history and archaeology curators from being too worried about their nearby collections! Has anyone set up a similar colony? Any ideas are appreciated!

Dave

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David L. Dyer
Curator of Natural History                              Phone: 614-298-2055
Ohio Historical Society                                      Fax:      614-298-2089
800 E. 17th Ave.                                                    ddyer at ohiohistory.org
Columbus, Ohio 43211-2474

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