Dear colleagues,

I would like to hear from anyone who has used both Hoyer's medium and CMC-10 for objective comparisons of advantages and disadvantages of the mediums. Thank you.

Mark

Mark St. John
Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO
80523-1499
USA

Phone: 970-491-1098 Fax: 970-491-1965

mailto:marksj@nrel.colostate.edu

http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/soil

At 7:55 AM -0700 12/4/1998, Mark St. John wrote:
>Dear colleagues,
>
>I would like to hear from anyone who has used both Hoyer's medium and  CMC-10 for objective
>comparisons of advantages and disadvantages of the mediums. Thank you.
>
I used both 20 years ago.  The CMC medium is good in that slides don't have to be sealed and the clearing properties are excellent.  It is bad, and I stopped using it after a year because it tends to shrink and totally flatten the specimens to the point where dorsum and venter cannot be distinguished.  I've tried remounting these, and although it's not hard to get the specimen out of the medium, it remains 2-dimensional!  This type of shrinkage is different than what I've seen with slides mounted in PVA. With those, the medium tends to shrink away from the specimen, pulling off the setae.  There appear to be different formulations of PVA and some people are using it today.  I've seen some PVA slides made 30 years ago that still appear OK.  Others are totally crushed or distorted with all setae pulled off.

I still use Hoyer's because, although slides must be sealed, it leaves the specimens in good shape.  Even if the medium deterioriates due to a bad seal, the specimen can be easily recovered and remounted, assuming it wasn't dissected.

Barry M. OConnor                phone: (734) 763-4354
Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc@umich.edu
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA
 

Dear Colleagues: I am working on biology and control of ticks for more than 20 years. Now I have updated the method of tick feeding, in Boophilus microplus, through micropipettes in such a way that you can compare different treatments. But if you would want to engorged adults females or even to be able to obtain artificial breeding in laboratory, it is necessary to feed ticks through membranes. I have developed a new feeding chamber and have employed an original and very cheap membrane. The results with newly molted virgin females were amazing. All ticks attached in the membrane and begin to feed. Unfortunately I have no material means to continue experiments in order to achieve continous feeding. The resources that I need for this goal are very inexpensive. For this reasons I am
looking for someone interested in this matter. I'll listen your proposals.
 

Rafael.

Rafael de la Vega
Apartado 34
General Peraza
CP-19250
Ciudad Habana
Cuba

At 9:57 AM -0700 12/4/1998, Joel Hutcheson wrote:
>Barry,
>Do your experiences, especially the negative aspects, apply only to delicate astigs, or to specimens
>of other acarine suborders?  It seemed  to work pretty well for me with cleared larval and nymphal
>ixodid ticks.

Hi Joel - I never mounted really large mites in CM.  I suppose if the specimen was really big and hard enough, it might counter the tendency to flatten.  I mounted a lot of parasitic mites, including chiggers in the stuff way back then as well as some phytoseiids and insect phoretic laelapids.  The mesostigs are a bit easier to deal with now than are the others.  They're still not fun, though!
Cheers - Barry

Barry M. OConnor                phone: (734) 763-4354
Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc@umich.edu
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA

_______________________________________________________________________________
Dear all:  Delighted to see the discussions, and useful copying of these responses to the acarology list, as many on the lists would like to see these.  Here is another one from David Walter, which for some reason did not get through to the list. Zhi-Qiang
______________________________________________________________________________

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 12:56:51 +1000
To: "Mark St. John" <marksj@NREL.ColoState.EDU>
From: David Walter <D.Walter@mailbox.uq.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Hoyer's vs CMC-10
Cc: acarology@nhm.ac.uk

Hi Mark,

About two years ago I started trialling a Heinze-PVA variant that Matt Colloff recommended (similar to that in the Introduction of Evans 1992), and I've since completely abandoned Hoyers.  Most of the slides that I make are of Mesostigmata, but many of these are of the lightly sclerotised types(e.g. Phytoseiidae) and I haven't noticed any losses due to extreme flattening, distortion, or pulling off os setae etc.  I've had a 1-5% failure rate with the PVA slides (vs 10-50% for Hoyers) - almost entirely due to not using enough medium, so invaginations occurred as the slides dried.  One lot of failures occurred when I tried for very thin mounts, but more commonly it happens when mounting a larger than average mite and not adding excess medium.

One caveat, I like thin mounts and fine-levels of focus (although my students seem to be able to use the slides easily enough).  Also, I've only been making these slides for two years.  In a humid subtropical climate like Brisbane's, however, Hoyers really sucks.  Added to that are all the mysterious failures that regularly happen (granualtion, opacity, oil droplets, etc.).  However, when I worked in the very dry, temperate Ft Collins climate, at least the short term failure rate for Hoyers seemed low.

Cheers,

Dave

Dr David Evans Walter
Department of Zoology & ENTOMOLOGY
Hartley-Teakle Building
The University of Queensland
St Lucia, QLD 4072 Australia

phone: 07-3365-1564
fax: (61) 7-3365-1922

Visit the Mite Image Gallery at:
http://www.uq.edu.au/entomology/mite/mitetxt.html

Barry,
Do your experiences, especially the negative aspects, apply only to delicate astigs, or to specimens of other acarine suborders?  It seemed to work pretty well for me with cleared larval and nymphal ixodid ticks.

Joel Hutcheson

"Barry M. OConnor" wrote:
>
> At 7:55 AM -0700 12/4/1998, Mark St. John wrote:
> >Dear colleagues,
> >
> >I would like to hear from anyone who has used both Hoyer's medium and  CMC-10 for objective
> >comparisons of advantages and disadvantages of the mediums. Thank you.
> >
> I used both 20 years ago.  The CMC medium is good in that slides don't have  to be sealed and the
> clearing properties are excellent.  It is bad, and I stopped using it after a year because it tends to
> shrink and totally flatten the specimens to the  point where dorsum and venter cannot be  distinguished .
> I've tried remounting these,  and  although it's not hard to get the specimen out of the
> medium, it remains 2-dimensional!   This type of shrinkage is different than what I've seen with
> slides mounted in PVA.  With those, the medium tends to shrink away from the specimen, pulling
> off  the setae.   There  appear to be different formulations of  PVA and some people are using it
> today.  I've  seen some  PVA  slides made 30 years ago that still appear OK.   Others are totally
> crushed or distorted with all setae pulled off.
>
> I still use Hoyer's because, although slides must be sealed, it leaves the  specimens in good shape.
> Even if the medium deterioriates due to a bad seal, the specimen can be easily recovered and  re-
> mounted, assuming it wasn't dissected.
>
> Barry M. OConnor                phone: (734) 763-4354
> Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
> University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc@umich.edu
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA

------------------------------------------------
H. Joel Hutcheson, Ph.D.
NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Microbiology
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1677
U.S.A.

Telephone: (970)491-8530
FAX: (970)491-1815
e-mail: hjhutch@lamar.colostate.edu
WWW: http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hjhutch
----------------------------------------------

From: "Tania Fisher (Product Mktg)" <T.FISHER@CABI.ORG>
Subject: New information service on the web
To: acarology listserv <acarology@nhm.ac.uk>
Message-id: <366C0E9E@msm.cgnet.com>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

If you are interested in entomology or other arthropod information you may find it useful to know that a  major new resource will be available on the Web in January 1999.

The service, called BioBridge to Entomology, is being launched through an alliance between BIOSIS and CABI Publishing,  the world s two leading life science database publishers.  It will be a gateway to information on all arthropods, with a new integrated database at its core, combining the esources of BIOSIS Previews?,  CAB ABSTRACTS, and Zoological Record.  As a joint resource the database will offer more than other entomology information sources available, not only in the number of records included but also in the depth and breadth of coverage.

The database will retain the original features of the contributing resources, but will allow cross-database searching in an easy and user-friendly manner. Term mapping and duplicate record identification will add to the functionality of the combined database.

Almost 200,000 references will be included in BioBridge to Entomology, dating from 1995 to the present, and the database will be updated on a monthly basis.

The database will cover pure and applied information relating to arthropods, including insects, arachnids and crustaceans, and encompassing their natural biology as well as medical, veterinary, aquaculture and agricultural topics.

If you would like to assess the suitability of BioBridge to Entomology for your needs, you can register now for a free 30 day trial to start in January.

For more information and to request a free trial visit the BioBridge to Entomology Web site at http://www.biobridge.org

Can anybody help me?
I am in urgent need of SEM photos, good drawings and/or colour plates of the following genera or species:
Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus; facies and whole body
Larva and adult of Neotrombicula autumnalis; dorsal view
Tetranychus sp.; facies and dorsal view - and if possible, drawings or photos of the stages in their mating ritual + photo of infested plant
Varroa jacobsoni; facies, dorsal and ventral view + photo of infested bees
Scheloribates laevigatus as intermediate host of the tapeworm Moniezia expansa + drawings of lifecycle of the tapeworm
Dirocheles phalaenodectes; photo + drawins of lifecycle in the tympanal organ of a noctuid moth
Demodex folliculorum or D. brevis; single specimen + drawing of several specimens in hair follicle
Sarcoptes scabei; dorsal and ventral view + drawing of lifecycle in the human skin
Dorsal view of male and female Ixodes ricinus, and colour plate of engorged animal.  Also SEM photos of the chelicera.
Arrenurus conicus; male and female, dorsal view
Glycyphagus canestrinii; male and female, dorsal view
Pergamassus crassipes, male and female, ventral view
Analges clavipes, male and female, ventral view
Labidocarpus megalonyx, Geckobia loricata, Caelculus echinipes, Carabodes elongatus, and Pelops phaenotus, all dorsal views
Tegeocranus sp.(dorsal view) and Belba sp. (lateral view) with nymphal exuvial remains intact
Pelops acromius larva, tritonymph and adult, all dorsal views

The pictures are to be used in an exhibition at the Bergen Aquarium, and we need them before January 5th.  And they must be high quality.

If you can help me, please send me an e-mail (eli.amundsen@zoo.uib.no) naming the pictures you can supply, and your price of delivery and I will get back to you with details of payments and postal adress.

Thank you all in advance for helping me.

Regards, Eli Amundsen

From: Cyril Dary <Cyril.Dary@aquitaine.arist.tm.fr>
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [fr] (Win95; I)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: acarology@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Euseius Sibelius
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello,

I'm searching informations (monographs, various publications) on the acarina of the Euseius kind and Sibelius species.

Could you indicate to me if you have such documents or the address of specialists being able to answer this question?

Thank you

Cordially

Cyril DARY
Fax : (33) 05 56 11 94 95
Mail : cyril.dary@aquitaine.arist.tm.fr

I am interested in using digital photography for preparing detailed sketches/pictures of mites for identification purposes. I would also like to measure body length, setae etc.

I*d most appreciate any comments to the following questions:

    1.. Does anyone have experience with the digital camera Olympus DP10 and their image analysis software DP soft?

    2.. How do the new digital cameras compare to the video camera and frame grabber? Please give details regarding makes and models of digital and video cameras as well as frame grabbers.

    3.. For measuring, what image analysis software is recommended or can this be done somehow in PhotoShop?

    4.. Is the 60X oil objective particularly helpful for these tasks or can I get by with a dry 40X and an oil 100X?

    5.. Are both phase and DIC desirable and do phase objectives give satisfactory results in DIC (providing the manufacturer says they do)?
 

Looking forward to your comments,

Eric Palevsky

Email-palevsky@netvision.net.il

Dept. of Entomology
Faculty of Agriculture,
Hebrew University, Rehovot,
Israel

Lotsa Luck.  I tried using a Sony Makiva (has a 10:1 zoom and stores data on ordinary floppies). Not very much resolution.  Likewise, I didn't like videocamera and frame grabber.  Spent more time with image processing than if I had just drawn it.

What seems to work is:  Take the photo with print film (35 mm or APS), get a good print, and then scan it.  Modern scanners are pretty good; I get by with an EZphoto.  There are several software packages around, and they are getting better all the time.

Happy holidays,

Dac Crossley

At 07:00 PM 12/20/98 +0200, you wrote:
>I am interested in using digital photography for preparing detailed sketches/pictures of mites for identification purposes. I would also like to measure body length, setae etc.
>
>I'd most appreciate any comments to the following questions:
>
>    1.. Does anyone have experience with the digital camera Olympus DP10 and their image analysis software DP soft?
>
>    2.. How do the new digital cameras compare to the video camera and frame grabber? Please give details regarding makes and models of digital and video cameras as well as frame grabbers.
>
>    3.. For measuring, what image analysis software is recommended or can this be done somehow in PhotoShop?
>
>    4.. Is the 60X oil objective particularly helpful for these tasks or can I get by with a dry 40X and an oil 100X?
>
>    5.. Are both phase and DIC desirable and do phase objectives give satisfactory results in DIC (providing the manufacturer says they do)?
>
>Looking forward to your comments,
>
>
>Eric Palevsky
>Email-palevsky@netvision.net.il
>Dept. of Entomology
>Faculty of Agriculture,
>Hebrew University, Rehovot,
>Israel
>

D. A. Crossley, Jr.
Professor Emeritus
Institute of Ecology
Ecology Annex
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia 30602-2360

"Trust everybody, but always cut the cards."
 

CC: AGCAN.INTERNET("acarology@nhm.ac.uk")

Dear all mite-people:

I wish you a very Happy New Year, and I hope you have success in your projects, love in your lives, and peace in every moment.

A big hug from Argentina!

Liliana.

******************************************************************************
-'Qué es un mañana?...
-La eternidad... y un día'.

                               Del film 'La eternidad y un día'
                               del director Theo Angelopoulos.

*******************************************************************************
                              Liliana N. Monetti
                   Lab. de Artrópodos, Depto. De Biología
                    Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
               Funes 3350 - (7600) Mar del Plata - Argentina
       Fax #54-23-753150 - E-mail: monetti@mdp.edu.ar
******************************************************************************

Does anyone know of a key to the genus _Scapheremaeus_ (Cymbaeremaeidae)?

Thanks,

Richard Fagerlund                   Mail:  993 Orchid SW
University of New Mexico                  Rio Rancho, NM 87124
E-mail: fagerlun@unm.edu                  (505) 896-2524

Hi!
Does anyone have information about the European Acarology Conference that is going to take place in Italy in 1999? If someone knows about dead-lines, subjects, people to contact, addresses or so, I will be glad to receive these infomation.
Thanks!

Liliana

*******************************************************************************
-'Qué es un mañana?...
-La eternidad... y un día'.

                               Del film 'La eternidad y un día'
                               del director Theo Angelopoulos.

*******************************************************************************
                              Liliana N. Monetti
                   Lab. de Artrópodos, Depto. De Biología
                    Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
               Funes 3350 - (7600) Mar del Plata - Argentina
       Fax #54-23-753150 - E-mail: monetti@mdp.edu.ar
****************************************************************************