Sponsored by the
Museum of Natural
Science, Louisiana State University
On Jun 3, 2008, at 1:13 PM, Paul Sweet wrote:
I have been discussing the relative merits of tying
vs. gluing bills closed on study skins. I was taught to put a thread through
the nares and tie closed, but I'm hearing that some people use glue, and
non-archival, non-reversible "Crazy-Glue" at that. Any comments?
Paul Sweet
Collection Manager
Department of Ornithology
Division of Vertebrate Zoology
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th Street
New York, NY 10024
============================
Paul
There is no way I would be convinced to put a non-reversible glue on
a specimen. And it would take a lot of convincing before I'd use reversible
glue. The only exception might be for a classroom skin that I expect to
get beat on. I'll keep with thread or pins. We cannot see into the
future to determine how the specimens might be used, or the long-term effects
of such substances.
Thomas Labedz, Collections Manager
University of Nebraska State Museum
___________________________________________________________
Hi all-
Most bird bills can be held closed until dry with a rubber band
snipped from an appropriate size piece of surgical tubing. Picked up that
technique from Andy Williams, if I remember correctly.
Cheers, Sam Avinet
__
___________________________________________________________
From an unpublished manuscript I never quite finished with. Data
circa
1985-86.
Study Skin Preparation
No. 27. "How is the beak held together when drying?"
US
Foreign
Total
A. By a string through the nostrils and the beak tied
            around the mandible
50       51       97
B. By a pin through the beak and the beak tied
            (generally in the
ramus portion of beak, just
            posterior to gonys
45       38       81
C. Other:
17       10       27
            Masking tape or
cello tape used to tape bill shut  2
5          7
            Use of rubber
bands, rubber rings
1          3          4
            Use of orthodontia
rubber bands
2          -           2
            Rubber tubing
2          -           2
            Crossed pins over
mandible keeping beak closed                     2
-           2
            Both A and B above
(especially on a large bird) 1
-           1
            Thread passed
proximal to nostrils
1          -           1
            Beak tied around
only (no pin or through nostril)    -
1          1
            Twistem (plastic
over wire) through nostril              1
-           1
            Mandibles glued
together with white glue
1          -           1
            With "Grinnell’s
method the beak is shut tight
           automatically"(?)
1          -           1
            Cotton wrapped
around bill
-           1          1
            Lump of wax,
softened and placed over tip                      -
1          1
Comments:
            A number of museums
stressed that a preparator should never put a string through the nostrils to
tie the beak. Museums mentioning this included San Diego Natural History
Museum; North Carolina State Museum of Natural History; Dallas Museum of
Natural History; Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; British Columbia
Provincial Museum, Canada; and National Science Museum, Tokyo, Japan.
University of Arizona -- 25% of the time tie a string through
nostrils, 75% of the time use a pin through beak and the beak tied.
Occasionally a rubber band is used for birds with long skinny bills.
Field Museum of Natural History -- Tie through the nostrils for most
birds, but pin beaks of large billed finches, parrots, etc., where tying
through the nostril is often ineffective. Hummingbirds can be tied around
bill.
Louisiana State Museum -- S.W.C. feels that white glue is best for
finches and raptor birds while J.V.R. thinks that gluing the bills as an
adjunct to pinning and tying is the best method because the string slips too
often.
John G. Williams -- Use either a string through the nostrils, or a
small rubber ring around bill or in birds of prey, etc., a pin is used.
Institute voor Taxonomische Zoologie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands –
Tie the beak together in all species that have a perforated nostril but pin
those without perforate nostrils, e.g., Procellariiformes.
Stephen P. Rogers (Mr.)
Collection Manager of Section of Birds
and Section of Amphibians and Reptiles
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh PA 15213-4080
___________________________________________
Dear AVECOLers-
Based upon my experiences with Alejandro Rico in a study of
hummingbird bills, in which we found some very interested structures on the inside(palatal
surface)as well as the tomia of the ramphotheca, I react with horror at the
thought of gluing bills.. even a "reversible" glue probably would
have destroyed the structures we are studying, which are quite delicate.
The rubber bands snipped from surgical tubing work very well for most
birds, in combination with a pin inserted in the bird's "chin" just
behind the posterior margin of the bill in fat-billed things like finches. For
thin-billed birds, a clove hitch with thread (if you run out of tubing) also
works fine. Putting a pin through the nostrils will mess up the operculum if
present and any medial septum and may distort the shapes of the nostrils -
important if one wishes to skeletonize the skull/bill for anatomical work at
some point.
Saludos-
Gary Stiles
___________________________________________
Dear Preparators-
Believe it or not, use of
the glue technique HAS been on the increase, including some preparators here at
LSUMNS. I personally have never used glue, but in defense of others here
that do use the glue technique:
1. RE
that gluing is a “shortcut,” I would argue just the opposite- it’s just as time
consuming as tying, and you have to be more careful when dealing with
glue-there’s no room for error....
2. RE short-term and
long-term consequences of using super glue compounds on specimens, we actually
asked a chemist when we first started doing this and he told us that there
would be no harm. I don’t have a scientific analysis to back that
up but if anyone can provide information to the contrary then I’d like to know
about it.
Regarding the problem of
bills coming open after being tied, pinned, or rubber-banded, if the bill was
properly aligned to begin with, then you can usually still squeeze the bill
closed and get bill depth. As everyone probably knows, the main problem
with the tying/rubber-banding techniques is that the mandible tends to slide
proximally and ends up out of alignment, and then there’s no way to get an
accurate bill depth measurement (as is also the case with lateral and distal
misalignment of the mandible). So, as others have described, adding an
anchor pin in the gonys area, especially on conical bills, is advisable (and
for tie-ers, the bill closure thread can be looped behind the pin to leverage
the mandible forward into proper position).
Steve Cardiff
--
Steven W. Cardiff
Collections Manager, Birds & Mammals
Museum of Natural Science
119 Foster Hall
Louisiana State University
____________________________________________
On my last trip to Jamaica with Gary Graves, I was super gluing
bills of hummingbirds. Gary first gave me a crap for using glue versus
tying them, but let me continue to glue them. (not really sure why?)
Anyway, after we returned from the field and Gary started measuring the
specimens and he noticed the birds with tied bills showed constriction at the
point of where he wanted to measure the bills. (thus affecting his
measurements) The glued bills didn't have this constriction. Gary
made the comment to me that maybe we should have been gluing bills on the
previous trips.
I'm going on the record that I don't think there is anything wrong
with using super glue, Elmer's (white) glue, or PVA to glue a bill shut.
Why? Because we do many other things to bird specimens that may
have more of an effect, singularly or in combination, on their long term
preservation or research value than using a drop of glue on the bill.
I quickly came up with a list of the chemical and/or mechanical
methods that have been or are currently used on bird specimens that may affect
the long-term survivorship and/or value of the specimen. I'm sure
everyone (especially Steve Rogers with the survey data he has collected) can
probably add something to this list...
• Human handling - break off wings/heads/legs, leave oils and other
stuff from our skins, wear down parts from repeated measuring, etc.
• Residue on the birds -one example woodpeckers have tree sap that
usually doesn't get washed off
• Guns - Birds are collected using shotguns. Bones are broken,
feathers lost, specimens damaged.
• Freezing - used to keep specimens until prep and/or used for
Integrated Pest Management
• Heating - used to kill Avian Influenza virus, dry specimens in the
field (fire/lanterns/sun/etc.), blow dry washed specimens
• Soap/Detergent - We all use it to wash and/or degrease specimens.
Some soaps contain dyes, perfumes, and other chemicals that may
potentially harm the specimens.
• Arsenic/Mercuric Chloride/Borax - used on skins to deter pests.
• Naphthalene/paradichlorobenzene (PDB) - used to kill or deter
pests.
•Alcohol (ETOH, Isopropyl) - used to remove mold, H5N1 treatment,
soak skeletons in the field
• Gasoline - used to degrease skins and/or skeletons
• Gunk engine degreaser - used to degrease skins (I'm sure other
things have also been tried!)
• Hexane - used to degrease skins and/or skeletons
• Mineral Spirits (or Stoddard's Solvent)- used to degrease skins
•Ammonia or sudsy ammonia - used to degrease skeletons
• Enzymes (trypsin) - used to degrease and clean bones
• Dermestids - used to prepare skeletons (any study on the chemicals
in their feces?)
• Maceration - used to prepare skeletons
• Sawdust/Corncob dust/cornmeal/corn starch/etc. - used to absorb
body fluids during skin prep, residues remain on specimens
• Saliva - used to moisten drying skins or remove blood during prep
• Hydrogen Peroxide - used to remove blood
• Exposure to light - UV damage
• Physical scraping of skins using hand or mechanical tools -
destroys bases of feathers, loose feathers, etc.
• Using mechanical tumblers - physical abuse to specimens
• Polyvinyl Acetate (PVA) - used to repair damaged specimens
• Shipping specimens on loan - specimens maybe
lost/damaged/confiscated/etc., no absolute control over specimens during or
after shipment
and so on...
-Brian Schmidt
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The number of studies crippled by an absence of study skins with
nares undamaged by sewing the bill shut is likely very small.  The number of studies in which N for bill
depth was diminished by improperly closed bills must be in the hundreds,
perhaps thousands, because the proportion of study skins with this problem is
alarming ,especially in species with conical bills.  Therefore, whatever it takes to insure proper
bill closure should take precedence, in my opinion.
Van Remsen