A Surprising New Medium for Specimen Preservation and Display

Abstract

220 Who would have guessed that antibacterial hand sanitizers are a passably good arthropod preservative and display medium? I stumbled upon that unlikely use nearly two years ago when one of our company service technicians brought me a partially used bottle of instant hand sanitizer that a customer had given him when he inquired about pest specimens for identification. The bottle, which had been kept uncapped on the customer’s bathroom vanity, contained 14 pumace flies, Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, suspended in perfect condition within the top inch of the viscous transparent liquid contents. Apparently the pomice flies were attracted to the fragrance of the hand sanitizer and became entrapped, reminiscent of fossil insects in amber. I was impressed by the specimen display potential of this line of personal hygiene products, so in addition to monitoring the condition of the D. melanogaster specimens during the months to follow, I purchased three brands of instant hand sanitizer for comparison in a (nonstatistically significant) study of their efficacy as arthropod preservatives. As a structural pest management industry consultant and technical director, I considered how wonderful it would be to position perishable specimens in an inexpensive, readily available, clear, viscous medium for use in arthropod identification workshops and reference. Said medium would have most of the benefits of plastic resin mounts with none of the shortcomings. Was it too good to be true? Were there hidden disappointments? Traditional preservative fluids (Borrer et al. 1989), as every taxonomist and collection curator knows, include: