Exoskeleton of an ant

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banania
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Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:01 am

Exoskeleton of an ant

Post by banania »

ImageExoskeleton of an ant by Henri Koskinen, on Flickr

Nikon 10x 0.25 with 100mm tube lens, 5x on sensor.

GaryB
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Post by GaryB »

Very nice, never seen one 'empty' before.

abpho
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Post by abpho »

That is a rare purple find. So neat.
I'm in Canada! Isn't that weird?

MarkSturtevant
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Post by MarkSturtevant »

So I expect this is mounted under a coverslip, but first processed to extract the soft tissues and/or render them transparent. Could you please explain the steps involved in that?
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

banania
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Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:01 am

Post by banania »

Thanks for comments,

I bought a set of prepared slides of biological specimens and the ant exoskeleton was in one of the slides. It is embedded in some thick mountant and under a cover slip. I don't know any other details about the slide. I would guess that they have used some kind of acid to empty the exoskeleton, maybe weak HCl, but that's just a guess.

The slides were not of very good quality and had lost of issues with stains and air bubbles, but I photographed a few of the better ones. Here is another one from the slide set, mosquito proboscis with Mitu 20x 0.42 + 200mm tube lens

ImageMosquito proboscis - Hyttysen imukärsä by Henri Koskinen, on Flickr

MarkSturtevant
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Post by MarkSturtevant »

That is interesting, though. My upbringing is in Entomology, and I had some classic training on mounting insects, including slide mounting. Methods to 'clear' the soft tissues of insects for microsocope slides including putting them in hot KOH, since that generally does not harm the exoskeleton while it purges the soft tissues. Before putting it into a permanent mount (balsam mountant, or the more synthetic Permount), they were dehydrated through a series of alcohols and then xylenes. It was a lot of fun.
It seems to me that these methods would be of interest to a lot of people here, since the results can be quite striking.
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

banania
Posts: 152
Joined: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:01 am

Post by banania »

I bought the slides just to educate myself about mounting stuff on slides. Also bought some mountants and glues, stains and other stuff used for mounting as I know next to nothing about preparing stuff for microscopy. So far I have been mostly using different clips and toothpicks, needles and such.

I have cleaned a lot of mineral samples though and used various acids and other chemicals in this process and would have thought that some weak acids would have worked nicely with insects, preserving the keratin parts. I must try this (if I find suitable dead specimens). Maybe 10% HCl treatment, then baking soda to neutralize the acid, then through rinse with water and lastly a go with ultrasonic cleaner... which I find is very useful in cleaning a lot of stuff.

Of course the method you described is much more advanced and there is probably a long history of trials and errors behind it. For me this is all new and I just enjoy the learning process and experimenting with stuff.

BugEZ
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Post by BugEZ »

NikonUser, a member of this forum, has done many studies that he has shared of mounted insects. He is very good at creating prepared slides.

Here is one of the simpler techniques he has shared...
http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... highlight=

If you use the search feature to search the "Macro and Micro Techniques and Technical Discussions" with NikonUser as the author you will find much of interest.

Excellent photos! I especially enjoyed the 20X proboscus when viewed on Flickr.

Keith[/b]

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