Steve O'Shea
Oct 5th, 2003, 10:55pm
With 'a few years' experience preserving octopus and squid (in museums) I'm used to things going to plan.
Attached is a pic of 'one of those specimens' that you would normally discard in a museum collection, because something 'went wrong'. What has happened is that the animal has gone quite translucent .... generally a sign of poor preservation (whereas all other specimens of this species, preserved during the same trip/expedition, look normal). The hooks on the arms of this small squid (an enoploteuthid) are intact, which means it isn't a problem with formalin solution buffering (they would 'dissolve' otherwise). So what happened? I don't know.
The reason why I ask is that the effect is quite interesting, in that beneath the micoscope the viscera is visible (as are the photophores on the viscera). Now if this procedure could be duplicated, just imagine what systematic characters you might see in larger-bodied squid (if they were treated in exactly the same way). I'd like to duplicate it. The problem is I do not understand the chemistry behind this quirk of preservation. Do we have any chemists out there that have any ideas how we could make larger-bodied squid transparent?
The only chemical that this specimen has been exposed to is formaldehyde; it was fixed in saltwater.
Ta
O
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=930
Attached is a pic of 'one of those specimens' that you would normally discard in a museum collection, because something 'went wrong'. What has happened is that the animal has gone quite translucent .... generally a sign of poor preservation (whereas all other specimens of this species, preserved during the same trip/expedition, look normal). The hooks on the arms of this small squid (an enoploteuthid) are intact, which means it isn't a problem with formalin solution buffering (they would 'dissolve' otherwise). So what happened? I don't know.
The reason why I ask is that the effect is quite interesting, in that beneath the micoscope the viscera is visible (as are the photophores on the viscera). Now if this procedure could be duplicated, just imagine what systematic characters you might see in larger-bodied squid (if they were treated in exactly the same way). I'd like to duplicate it. The problem is I do not understand the chemistry behind this quirk of preservation. Do we have any chemists out there that have any ideas how we could make larger-bodied squid transparent?
The only chemical that this specimen has been exposed to is formaldehyde; it was fixed in saltwater.
Ta
O
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=930