Abstract
Fluid preserved animal specimens in the collections of natural history museums constitute an invaluable archive of past and present animal diversity. Well-preserved specimens have a shelf-life spanning centuries and are widely used for e.g. anatomical, taxonomical and genetic studies. The way specimens were collected depended on the type of animal and the historical setting. As many small mammals and birds were historically collected by shooting, large quantities of heavy metal residues, primarily lead, may have been introduced into the sample in the form of lead shot pellets. Over time, these pellets may react with tissue fluids and/or the fixation and preservation agents and corrode into lead salts. As these chemicals are toxic, they could constitute a health issue to collection staff. Additionally, heavy element chemicals interfere with several imaging technologies increasingly used for non-invasive studies, and may confound anatomical and pathological investigations on affected specimens. Here we present a case-study based on platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and other small mammals containing lead pellets from the collection of The Natural History Museum of Denmark.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Artikelnummer | e0309845 |
| Tidsskrift | PLoS ONE |
| Vol/bind | 19 |
| Udgave nummer | 10 |
| Antal sider | 27 |
| ISSN | 1932-6203 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:HL is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (grant# CF21-0605) and PRM is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (grant# CF21-0435). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We wish to thank the Department of Forensic Medicine, Aarhus University, specifically Professor Lene Warner Thorup Boel for kindly providing access to the x-ray computed tomography system. Likewise, we wish to thank the MR-research Center, Aarhus University, specifically Professor Christoffer Laustsen for providing affordable access to magnetic resonance imaging. We also wish to thank the Clinic for Osteoporosis, Hormone and Bone Diseases, Aarhus University Hospital, specifically Lars Rejnmark and Tove Stenum for providing access to the extremity CT system used to image nodules. Finally, we wish to thank Daniel Kj\u00E6r Andersen for help with the rat cadaver experiment.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Lauridsen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.