[Nhcoll-l] Hydrating old crustaceans

[Lazo-Wasem, Eric]

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<mailto:prc44 at drexel.edu> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170

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