>Hi, All our merry band of holiday collectors!
>
>Does anyone have any special tips for handling micros when
>one's manual dexterity is decreasing (yes, we all age,
>unfortunately).
>
>Cheers!
>Linda

For sorting on a flat surface, use a small modeler's paintbrush with
SOFT bristles. Tweezers can be made from stainless "foil" (cut the
two arms with scissors, put folds in them to create the bends and tip
gap and have them hard-soldered... this is what I did, and they work
a treat)... these avoid the crushing problem associated with
commercial tweezers.

For separating bulk samples into dross/specimen segregations I use a
plastic tray (say an unribbed photodeveloping tray). In this I place
a black sheet with 2-3 raised sides, which leaves one end of the
tray's bottom with about 5cm uncovered (my sheet is an aluminum one,
sprayed satin black for contrast with the shells... lighter colors
reduce your ability to differentiate the material). I place a small
heap (big handful) of seivings on the far end of the sheet and draw
forward a few cm3 of grunge to sort with the small brush, a few
grains at a time. Specimens I sweep toward me, off the end of the
sheet, and then the leftovers are pushed off to the left of the sheet
(the lip keeps them from falling off the sheet). Repeat the process
until all desired specimens are on the end of the photo tray and the
residue is all in a heap still on the sheet. Lift out the sheet and
drain the grunge into a container for disposal... preferably to
someone who can store them for nonmolluscan workers to play with!
Then just tip the specimens out of the corner of the tray into a
holding container for sorting by species.

It certainly doesn't hurt to go over the grunge a second time (I'm
doing this now, and finding quite a bit of stuff I somehow managed to
miss first time round... eg Vacerrena nsp which must have been hidden
under a larger bivalve).

Sorting by species is more laborious... I use a small shallow
vertical-sided turquoise plastic tray... should use black here too...
(needs destaticing from time to time... try sorting micros on a
staticy tray!!), say 1-2cm deep and 10x20cm. I place a small pile, a
few cm3, of mixed specimens in the center and choose locations around
the margins for sorting to family level (dealing with lots of spp
here, so stages are better than sotrting to sp at stage 1). I
generally choose to sort families with more specimens to one side,
less specimens to another side... or you could do it by taxonomic
order, whatever suits. Then I use the brush to move specimens from
the margins to their allocated spaces, concentrating GENERALLY on a
species or 3 at a time. Once all are in separate familial piles, I go
around with 16x50 glass plug-top vials and brush each pile into its
own vial. These vials are then ready for sorting to species level,
for which I use exactly the same method as sorting to family level.

So I use stages:
1-grunge to bulk specimens (large tray/internal sheet)... repeat to
regain missed specimens!
2-bulk specimens to family level (small tray)
3-family level to species level (same small tray)
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
<[log in to unmask]>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut