[Nhcoll-l] Treatment of silverfish in a dry mollusc shell collection.

[Mandy Reid]

Hi
We, at the Australian Museum in Sydney, are currently in the process of moving a large dry shell collection from one storage facility to another. The dry shells are currently housed in a number of different ways ranging from open shelving and plastic tote bins, to approximately 1400 unlidded archival trays, each approximately 0.5 m square containing shells in press-seal plastic bags. Unfortunately, we have had an outbreak of silverfish in our storage facility and are trying to come up with the best way of treating the specimens prior to rehousing at another facility (the issue, of course, is the possibility of silverfish eating the specimen labels).

We appear to have two options:

1)     Gassing in the absence of oxygen (a nitrogen 'fumigation' chamber). This will take many weeks, involve opening thousands of press-seal bags and sealing them again after treatment.

2)     Freezing (at approximately -20 degrees c): Simpler, quicker, less handling involved, cheaper option.

We would be grateful if anyone could share their experience of freezing mollusc shells. (I have heard that delamination of some shells e.g. cowries, may be a problem and fragile shells may break. Is this a huge risk? The shells range in size from micromolluscs to giant clams)

Cheers
Mandy (Collection Manager, Malacology)

Dr Mandy Reid
Collection Manager, Malacology | Australian Museum Research Institute
Australian Museum  1 William Street Sydney NSW 2010 Australia
T 61 2 9320 6412 M 61 431 829 842 F 61 2 9320 6253

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