Acetone for removing the animal, Is this a useful technique?

[Marlo]

This topic created here from part of a post in another topic so it can be discussed on its own - Administrator.

dteven asks:

I wanted to ask about the acetone. I've never read about preserving shells in acetone before, but it seems to dehydrate and shrink the tissues, so it's pretty easy to tease the animals out. Is this a well-known technique?

[Matt]

I have collected insects for a long time. In that persuit I have learned that acetone is used in certain applications. As I understand it Acetone dissolves fats and oils. It is used in the preparation of Dragon Flies to "degrease" them and also reportedly helps preserve their color. After the specimen is soaked in Acetone it is taken out(well ventelated area) and the specimen is allowed to dry out for storage.

Acetone is also used to make perminent microscope slides of tissue. In that application the specimen is dehydrated first by soaking it in baths of Alcohol. The alcohol baths start at about 20% and are increased (in the percent of aclohol) to 50%, 70% and finally 99% before soaking the tissue in acetone to remove the alcohol and prepare the tissue for emersion in the Balsam before applying a cover slip.



I don't know if the above helps but basically I don't think that the acetone will hurt the shell. After using it I would suggest storing the shell in 70% ethyl alcohol. If you go to 99 % ethyl alcohol you will find that the tissue becomes brittle. Check the specimen vials from time to time and top them off.

Matt