[Nhcoll-l] Vial jar system for easier specimen collection maintenance

[Alexandra Snyder]

The MSB Division of Fishes uses a system of vial jars to contain collections of small fishes and/or small numbers of specimens (single cataloged lots), delicate larval fishes and eggs, collections of excised stomachs and gonads, and developmental series of fish larvae.

The products used:  8 and 10 dram boroscilliate glass  shell vials, absorbent cotton plugs, 3 liter Le Parfait captive lid jars with Duro Buna N rubber gaskets, DataMax vial labels and jar label.

No more than 40 vials (or two layers) can be stored in one jar.  I do not use jars larger than 3 liters (or the ease of finding one vial is defeated) but will utilize smaller French captive lid jars 1 and 2 liter) with N-Buna gaskets for specialized/static collections.  The vial jars are topped off before they are stored in the cataloged collections.

I have used this system for storing small collections in two different collections that I have managed.  The MSB system has been in place for 25 years and over 1/3 of our collection (about 40,000 lots) is archived in the vial jar system. We are a collection that serves research in desert fish ecology-life histories and changes in aquatic systems of NM and the desert SW so our collections contain many larval fishes and redundant series from monitoring work.  The MSB Divisions of Arthropods and Parasites also use a vial jar system with 1 liter Le Parfait jars and N-Buna gaskets.

 I tried attaching a picture of these vial jars but it was rejected.   If you have further questions feel free to email me and I can send more information.


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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

PHYSICAL ADDRESS FOR FEDEX/UPS
Bldg.83  Room 204
302 Yale Blvd NE



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