Hi Maryline As a slightly more expensive but very effective alternative you could try snap-freezing them using electrical-component freezing spray:
Craze & Barr (2002) The use of electrical-component freezing spray as a method for killing and preparing snails. Journal of Molluscan Studies, 68: 191 - 192. (Let me know offlist if you have trouble getting hold of it and I'll send you a pdf). This has the advantage that it is almost instant (and so also humane), will work for slugs or snails, avoids any problems with mucous production and there is also a very good chance the nematodes you're interested in will stay undamaged. We've used the technique very effectively in the field for collecting snails when it was important to retain the genitalia in the state they are during copulation (Schilthuizen et al. 2007, Journal of Evolutionary Biology) and that worked extremely well so I would think the nematodes would survive relatively unharmed too. Let me know if that's any use. Best wishes Paul Dr. Paul Craze Lecturer in Evolution and Ecology, University of Sussex Visiting Statistics Advisor, University of Bristol ****************************************** http://www.sussex.ac.uk/biology/profile205903.html ****************************************** On Tue, July 15, 2008 3:54 pm, Maryline PIOZ wrote: > Dear Ecologgers, does anyone know how to kill in a humane way land snails > and slugs before cutting them in small pieces and digesting them in a > pepsin solution? I�m working on a nematod parasite, Parelaphostrongylus > tenuis, which uses terrestrial snails and slugs as intermediate hosts and > ungulates as final hosts. I would like to digest gastropods to search for > the presence of stage three larvae of P. tenuis, so I need to use a > technique to kill the gastropods but not the P. tenuis larvae to avoid > them to be digested by the pepsin solution. > > Clove oil is used as an anesthetic for fish and can be used to euthanize > them at high concentration, but I didn�t find any informations about its > use in gastropods. Some authors reported using CO2 to euthanize snails. > Does anyone have used this technique? > > > Thanks in advance, > > Maryline Pioz > > --
