Genitalia observation technics

[Nieukerken, E.J. van]

	About mountant media: look in the excellent paper by Paul Brown:

	Brown, P.A., 1997. A review of techniques used in the preparation,
curation and conservation of microscope slides at the Natural History
Museum, London. - The Biology Curator, 10: 1-33.

	From this paper it is clear that ONLY Euparal and Canada Balsam are
safe mounting media for long time storage. Almost all other media are prone
to deterioriation in the long run, either  crystallizing, becoming black,
etc..

	Glycerin vials may be handy for long series of taxonomic less
important material, but for taxonomic important material I would always
advise to make permanent slides in Euparal or Canada Balsam. 


Erik J. van Nieukerken

curator of Entomology (Microlepidoptera + Arachnida et al.)/ 
editor Tijdschrift voor Entomologie

National Museum of Natural History Naturalis
dep. of Entomology
PO Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands

direct phone: +31-71-56 87 682 (secretary ..622)
fax:      +31-71-5687666
e-mail:  nieukerken at nnm.nl <mailto:nieukerken at nnm.nl>