[Nhcoll-l] Preserving wet specimens in the field?

[Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Black Mountain)]

Hello all,

I am wondering if any of you collect vertebrate specimens in remote field locations which are destined for preservation in ethanol. If so, I would love to hear about your workflows in the field.  For example, do you fix your specimens in the field, and if so, do you carry around ethanol to step them out of formalin while you are away, or do you wait until you are back in your institution? And if so, what do you do with fresh specimens in the interim?

We are interested in collecting more specimens (terrestrial vertebrates) to be preserved in spirit. We keep running up against logistical issues related to trying to avoid freezing specimens and then prepping them when back in the lab. Typically we run trips that can take us into the field for weeks at a time. If we want to fix and preserve more than very tiny things while we are on a field trip, I think it means we must carry around with us quantities of formalin and ethanol that are both potentially hazardous and that take up a lot of space. Alternatively, freezing specimens until we are home seems to me by far the easiest and most efficient thing to do from a logistics point of view, but I know that it's preferable to preserve specimens immediately after death, and not have an intermediate freezing period.

I would love to hear any thoughts, suggestions, experiences, recommendations or references anyone may have about this topic.

Thanks!

Tonya



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Dr Tonya Haff
Senior Collection Manager
Australian National Wildlife Collection
National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO
Canberra, ACT 2602 Australia
+61(0)419569109

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