{"id":296,"date":"2024-02-23T16:57:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T16:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/134.209.21.121\/?page_id=296"},"modified":"2024-02-23T16:57:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T16:57:33","slug":"fluid-collections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/134.209.21.121\/index.php\/collections\/types-of-collections\/fluid-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"Fluid Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fluid-preserved Natural Science specimens are housed in specialised storage conditions within many museums. Smaller museums often consider them too much of a health hazard and fire risk or are too understaffed to bother with them. Fluid-preserved collections require constant maintenance or they will rapidly deteriorate. Despite this, most specimens can be rescued from a semi- or nearly totally-deteriorated condition by a trained conservator. Fluid-preserved specimens are highly important since reference can be made to them at any time as new characteristics to species definition are constantly being discovered by taxonomists – this is particularly important where now-extinct species can still be examined. Molecular biologists store samples of animal and plant DNA in absolute ethanol as a reference collection since this will not interfere with the molecular structure of DNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most whole specimens are stored in 70-80% IMS (industrial methylated spirit) which dehydrates them and maintains their state of preservation so that they do not deteriorate. Such specimens are stored in glass jars in a cool temperature (about 10 degrees Centigrade) and in the dark. Provided that this state is maintained they can last indefinitely. Maintaining them can be a problem – formaldehyde which is used as a fixative (initial preserving agent) is poisonous and dermatitic, its fumes are highly irritating and carcinogenic; IMS is highly flammable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small specimens are sometimes stored in preserving fluid inside glass cells as microscope mounts – these are sealed with gold size and stored in slide cabinets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further information can be obtained from:<\/p>\n\n\n\n