[Nhcoll-l] Hydrating old crustaceans

[Simon Moore]

Thanks Eric and Paul, for bringing up a subject that has always been a bit of a challenge as ‘crusties’ are one of the most difficult animals to rehydrate successfully.  I remember the Jeppesen paper when it came out and it steered me away from the tried but not-always-successful tri-sodium phosphate solution of 1947 into using the lab surfactant Decon-90 at 3 to 5% and this has proved very successful overall, especially for high protein organisms.  Di-octyl Sulpho-succinate is also very effective.  However, Eric mentioned Aerosol OT which is unknown to me, so Eric, please could we have some more details?  The link you kindly attached, sent sent me to Jeppesen’s paper which I cannot download as I’m not part of a library, university &c.

With all good wishes, Simon

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian,

www.natural-history-conservation.com




> On 5 May 2021, at 16:37, Lazo-Wasem, Eric <eric.lazo-wasem at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Paul,
>  
> An interesting question and one that has left many of us puzzled.  I fret over what to do with a dry crab collected by the Exploring Expedition – it is the type of the famously eaten Dungeness crab, and the carapace is delaminating.  I found the crab in a glassware cabinet in a superheated basement hallway; why this precious specimen was there……..
>  
> Anyway, I have had excellent success rehydrating long dried smaller crustacea, amphipods, isopods, etc. using Aerosol-OT, something Bill Moser suggested we use for dried leeches.  See the link following for an example.  It was the dried syntype of Hyalella dentata from the 19th century.  I rehydrated it in Aerosol OT, and then was able to dissect it and make wonderful slides.  If you follow the link you will see the pre-hydrating image of the whole specimen, and then scrolling down to the bottom you can see the thumbnails of slide images to get a sense of the quality. 
>  
> Also, Les Watling at U. Hawaii raved about another surfactant (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate)  that is mentioned in a paper by Paul Jeppensen. See link:
>  
> https://www.jstor.org/stable/20104402?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
>  
> Best, Eric
>  
>  
>  
> Eric A. Lazo-Wasem
> Senior Collections Manager
> Peabody Museum of Natural History
> Yale University
> 170 Whitney Ave.
> New Haven, CT 06520
> 203 432-3784
>  
> From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Callomon,Paul
> Sent: Wednesday, May 5, 2021 10:35 AM
> To: NH-COLL listserv (nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu) <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
> Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Hydrating old crustaceans
>  
> Folks,
>  
> I’m doing some research and testing to assess whether our very old dry crustacean specimens would be better placed in fluid from now. Left in air it seems inevitable that they will eventually dry out to the point of disintegration. I’d like to solicit people’s input on these two points:
> - Reviewing the literature on this subject, particularly accounts of actual hydration/fluidization protocols and experiments
> - Designing experiments and publishing basic procedures
> If you know of relevant publications, have anecdotal experience of your own and/or would be interested in joining an informal working group on this topic, please email me directly.
>  
> Paul Callomon
> Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates
> Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
> 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
> prc44 at drexel.edu Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l
> 
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20210505/e24a5af6/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: PastedGraphic-2.tiff
Type: image/tiff
Size: 38900 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20210505/e24a5af6/attachment.tiff>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: MA logo.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 19375 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20210505/e24a5af6/attachment.jpg>