Dear All,

Wow amazing, I think I got enough answers for my
little question. Thanks a lot for your help.
In fact it was such a clarification since my senior
with different interest sometimes bother me with their
belief, although they never work with snails
before...;p

Okay thank a lot.
Felicia

--- Bernd Sahlmann <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> For histological studies I would recommend Bouins
> fluid or another
> histological fixative that contains a lot of acetic
> acid. You have to crack
> the shell at some points to allow the fluid to go in
> and fix the tissue. In
> very thick or big shells you may use a Dremel device
> to cut and bore a
> fenestration into the shell every 1-2 cm. After
> fixation for a day you may
> have to change the fluid to add new acid. The yellow
> color of the picrin
> acid have to be washed out afterwards with 70%
> alcohol befor further
> processing. This fixative is not good for carefully
> anatomical dissectioning
> as it hardens the tissue but it will work well with
> additional paraffin
> embedding.
> Another way to dissolve the shell is to use buffered
> chelat-complex building
> chemicals such as EDTA. This may take a really long
> time to dissolve the
> shells (weeks to months) so you have to use a
> fixative first anyway. Another
> problem is the relaxing of the animal before
> fixation if you are interested
> in non bivalve molluscs...
> Best regards
> Bernd Sahlmann
> from Munich
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Felicia Zahida" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:49 AM
> Subject: How do you open hard thick shells w/o
> destroy the flesh?
>
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I would like to ask how do you open hard thick
> shells
> > without destroy the flesh for anatomical study?
> >
> > I did it only to freshwater and terrestrial snails
> in
> > which the shells are thin and big enough, but not
> for
> > small shells commonly found in beaches.
> >
> > Is there any tools to crack the shell? what is the
> > name and where to buy?
> >
> > Thanks a lot
> > Felicia-Indonesia
> >
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