I would be leery of experimenting this way - especially if the specimens are
important. They may be very fragile and I would not trust the photo duster
in the can as the air pressure can be quite high and hard to control.

It would be best to get it touch with collections staff at  natural history
museums or conservators that have experience with cleaning butterfly
specimens.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Senior Conservator and Museum Consultant
Los Angeles, CA

On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Evelyn Ayre <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Does anyone know if it's possible to clean dust off dried butterfly
> specimens?  We have some Blue Morphos that look more greyish that turquoise.
>  What about using a can of pressurized air (like photographers use for
> dusting negatives)?  Or would it be better to just replace them altogether?
>
> =========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed
> information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message
> to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
> "help" (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
> [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read
> "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).