Cleaning, Preserving and Preparation of Chitons

[Marlo]

Moved here from another topic.

Member Ozcyp wrote:

Hi Marlo and Others,

I've never collected chitons before, mainly due to the fact that our specimans here [Mackay, Queensland, Australia] lack any colour and are all dull brown. Nothing like the very attractive critters that Marlo has displayed, which spurred an immediate interest.

Could someone please explain the cleaning/preparation method used in this interesting shell family for display purposes.

Marlo, are those chitons in your picture common or uncommon? One things for sure, they look great.

Cheers,
Iain

Marlo's note: There were quite a few where I collected them, but I don't usually seek out Chitons and, therefore, have no real feel for how common or uncommon they may be.

[Marlo]

Here's a post from Conch-L by Richard Goldberg:

"This link has been posted some time ago. None-the-less it is
another good resource for chiton collecting and preserving
information:

Preserving Chitons

[Marlo]

Moved here from another topic.

Member pliffgrieff wrote:

Here's how I preserve the chitons I collect:

First, I keep them alive in a jar of seawater until I can prepare them. A flexible plastic bottle works well as they climb up the sides and are easily "popped off". When I can, I pour the water into a tray and place the chitons on plexiglass strips in the tray- they flatten out and settle onto the strips.

Once they are settled in place (or nudged into a spot in the middle of the strip), I carefully wrap them with thread or, if the girdle is especially fleshy, cloth, to bind them snugly to the plexiglas strip. You have to be careful not to cut into the girdle with the thread. I then dump the chiton/strip into a mixture of 50% alcohol/50%glycerin. They then stay in this mixture for a few weeks.

The alcohol pulls the water out of the fleshy parts and it is replaced by the glycerin, leaving the girdle and the body tissue flexible. The liquid also will turn yellowish green as it leaches fluid out of the tissue.

After the bound chitons are removed from the alcohol/glycerin, I remove them from their strips, clean them up a bit and retie them down to dry flat. Its important to let them dry up while tied down or they will curl somewhat.

I know that this seems like a lot of work but I think that it sure beats trying to clean some gastropods (Terebras, for example).

Member Russ replied and asked:

So in most cases we just cleaned them and reassembled the plates with superglue. Some we dried with the girdle.

Where do you get glycerin anyway?

pliffgrieff replied:

Here, on the West Coast of the US, glycerin is sold in small bottles in most pharmacies. It is rather expensive in that form. Does anyone know where it can be purchased in less expensive bulk amounts?

[gwatters]

I did my MS work on chitons and collected more of them than I care to remember. Here is an easy way to preserve them in a flat position.

1) bring them back in plenty of sea water
2) put them and a small amount of sea water in the bottom of a small, flat container or plate - you need a flat bottom and lip or rim on the container
3) let them uncurl and start moving around
4) when in a suitable position, place a wadded up face towel or some other fabric over them - you need a thick layer to mold to the chiton's body and trap it
5) quickly press and hold the towel down so the chiton doesn't release and curl up
6) pour ETOH, rubbing alcohol, Everclear, or whatever you have on the towel, soaking it, hold for a few minutes
6) put something heavy on the towel to hold it firmly down
7) leave it for a hour or so, drain, and remove chiton
8) this works best if you do one chiton at a time - they won't all relax at the same time and the ischnochitons will try to leave the room. Be sure to thoroughly rinse out the container between each use with sea water
9) some chitons, particularly if they were injured when collected, will never uncurl

I should mention that when you remove them from the plate, you will still need to preserve them in something - this method only kills them in a flat position, it does not preserve them.

I have used the glycerin method for preservation and it works pretty well, but beware of mold growing on them later on. The larger the specimen the more prone they are to mold.

[Marlo]

The subject of preserving chitons came up again on Conch-L in Nov 2008. Here is what was said:

On Nov 3 Andrew Grebneff cited the following method

"> You need to have some good salt water and a large pan they can sit in.
> Keep them in water until you get to wherever you're staying , then put
> them in the clean water and wait for them to relax. I have a box that
> they fit in nicely (a breadbox) and put a piece of hard plastic under
> them. When they're flat I pick up the plastic, holding the chiton on
> it, pour out the salt water and tie the chiton down with strips of
> panty hose (Place another strip of plastic between the chiton's back
> and the hose to avoid having indentations on the chiton from the
> hose.) Then immerse it in alcohol for at least a day. Dry thoroughly."

Andrew then commented "Have a heart! These things have pain receptors. How would you like to have your lungs filled with ethanol?

He then presented the following alternate method:

Place live chitons in a water-free container with flat sides & bottom.
Wait until the animals are comfortable attached to a flat surface.
Place in freezer for 24 hours. Transfer container to fridge to thaw gradually; when thawed, slide chitons off and immerse in mixture of ethanol and glycerine (or better, 4% formalin and glycerine) and leave for a week or more (much less if using formalin, because it may attack the shell unnoticably). Then pat specimens dry; the glycerine will keep the soft parts pliable. You may want to remove the foot and innards before placing in preservative, and this will reduce the time in formalin to a safe couple of days For smaller species than adult C.
stelleri). Preferably then keep the specimens in sealed containers to stop the glycerine from absorbing moisture from the atmosphere (good-quality heavy ZipLoc bags could be used).

Some of the replies on Conch-L were:

steve rosenthal commented:

a sheller friend I know used to tie chitions to a board (nothing new there) and place them in a water filled container. then he would take cigarettes and put them in the water...the nicotine would relax and anesthetize the animal. He did this on a collecting trip and it worked really well!

Harry G. Lee then noted:

I have seen this work with land snails, but I thought, no kidding here, that only mentholated cigarettes worked. Menthol is a known relaxing agent - at least for terrestrial pulmonates.