[Nhcoll-l] Riker Mount Heat Treatment for Pests

[Doug Yanega]

On 7/12/18 4:28 PM, Joanna Chu wrote:
> We recently received a donation of several boxes of insect Riker 
> mounts and at least some have active pest infestations, so we need to 
> either heat treat or freeze them all. We are fairly limited on freezer 
> space so I was wondering if anyone has heat treated Riker mount 
> specimens before and has any info on protocols or contraindications 
> for this method.
Heat treating is much more likely to damage insect specimens than 
freezing; all major entomology collections I know of use freezing for 
dermestid control. Assuming that the freezer is cold enough, the usual 
protocol is to put the units/mounts in plastic bags, then 48-72 hours in 
the freezer, 24 hour thaw, and then 24 more hours in the freezer, then 
let them come back to room temperature before opening the bags again.

If your freezer space is limited, that's par for the course. We just 
rotate units in and out until everything has cycled through; it can take 
weeks or even months. Bear in mind also that it's a situation calling 
for triage; any Riker mount that has sufficient damage already is 
generally not worth attempting to salvage, so they can be disposed of, 
rather than wasting time and energy on them.

Hope this helps,

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82