Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum

Arsenic Testing at the Montana Natural History Center

As you can imagine we are a little limited on space here at the PLWZM, so many of our live mount specimens are loaned for display at other facilities around the community.  One of those locations is at the Montana Natural History Center here in Missoula.  Currently, the center is considering reconfiguring the layout of their displays, but how exactly they go about that will be partially dependent on the age and condition of the live mounts.  As you can see in some of these pictures there is an inadequate border or deterrent around some of the displays, lending them to being easy prey when it comes to small inquisitive children.  Dave and I went out there yesterday to collect some samples to test for arsenic as we have found most skins in our collection before 1960 to have been preserved with as much, and we certainly wouldn’t want any visitors to accidentally come into contact with it. (See my earlier post about arsenic and its use in our museum!)

To give you a quick summary of the process and to clarify what I’m doing in the photos: I used a simple scraping tool to poke along seams on the mounts and other areas that may have opened up slightly over time, such as in the ears, around the mouth, under the belly and tail, and around the appendages to collect bits of dust, fur, and whatever else that may be contaminated.  Later we will run a series of tests using all kinds of fun reagents (in a well-ventilated area to be sure) which will either confirm or deny the existence of arsenic in our live mounts.  After we come to some conclusions we can move ahead in conjunction with the MNHC to find the best solution for displaying our beautiful and irreplaceable mounted specimens in a way that will continue to be safe, educational and rewarding for all.