[Nhcoll-l] Dermestid control in pelts

Thu Feb 1 12:07:22 EST 2018

Hello Trish,
I agree with Beth and Julia, but some specimens might experience shock going directly from room temperature into ultracold temperatures.  If you have skeletal material or other natural history materials, you may wish to use a “warmer” temperature of -20 to -30 C, but this does require more time in the freezer (something you would have to gauge against your program schedule, and against risks of ultracold freezer damage to your collection).  At -20C (-4F), the low temperature for many commercial chest freezers, we would leave the specimens in for a minimum of 14 days.
Cheers,
Jeff

JEFF STEPHENSON
COLLECTIONS MANAGER, ZOOLOGY DEPARTMENT

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From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Wommack
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2018 9:51 AM
To: Julia Sybalsky
Cc: Hanson, Trish; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Dermestid control in pelts

Hi Trish,

I'll echo Julia's recommendation on freezing. We keep a regular schedule for freezing, package specimens into plastic containers, and freeze them for at least 3 days at -80.

For specimens that are used in teaching, a regular schedule really helps keep control over the possible appearance of the pests. When we send specimens out for teaching use, they are frozen before they are allowed to go back into the regular collection.
I'd recommend freezing all of your pelts, finding an air tight container to store them in, and then freezing each set that goes out afterwards. Hopefully, if you kill all the pests now you won't need to freeze the entire collection all at once again.

cheers,
Beth Wommack

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 5:26 AM, Julia Sybalsky <jsybalsky at amnh.org<mailto:jsybalsky at amnh.org>> wrote:
Hi Trish,
We have found freezing to be a comparatively straightforward, low cost, low toxicity solution to managing pest outbreaks in pelts and hides in our collections. Particularly with a teaching collection that will be handled by students, I would think freezing and anoxia are your best options. For freezing to be effective, it's important that the protocol utilizes appropriate air-tight packing, and a freezer that is adequately cold for a sufficient period of time. Pelts do not need to be packed individually. Our standard protocol is 1 week at -40. In some cases this would be overkill but it allows us to know that we have effectively killed not only the species we know or suspect are present, but also anything that may have gone unnoticed, at all life stages. Museumpests.net<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__Museumpests.net&d=DwMGaQ&c=cjytLXgP8ixuoHflwc-poQ&r=LpYc_Z_iN1KRw0hheb3x6-8MJUMu482qfHowpGYJqwc&m=iVWoPQxQ1PYJcNzMmxGooHhGgQU1bikV3nOhxG8ZoPE&s=gqswCkHdxxMD5fKXjy6TiHjnRj1zE5AYSyft4mTeYpE&e=> is a great resource for more information on freezing and other solutions.
Julia Sybalsky
Senior Associate Conservator

Natural Science Collections Conservation
American Museum of Natural History
212-313-7533
413-695-9844 (cell)

On Feb 1, 2018, at 7:02 AM, Hanson, Trish <Trish.Hanson at vermont.gov<mailto:Trish.Hanson at vermont.gov>> wrote:
I received this inquiry from the coordinator of a natural history education program, and would like to share it with the nhcoll group.  The issue is  about dermestid beetles in animal pelts that are contained in teaching kits.  Thank you!  She wrote:

Several of our squirrel pelts have become infested with dermestid beetle larvae and we don't know what to do. We have about 50 pelts of gray and red squirrels, and several tails without the attached pelts (we collected these from road or cat kills). The beetles first appeared in the tails, but now are spreading to the pelts too.

We've been told to put them in a freezer but it's awkward as we have so many, and then we'll have to repack them into our kits every winter when we give them to schools to teach. We wondered if you'd have any suggestions, or could put us in touch with someone who might. We can't use moth balls because many kids hate that smell (and it's probably bad for them to breathe anyway). We also have deer, beaver and muskrat pelts and deer legs - so far they are clean but we worry that the beetles might find them.

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University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates
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