Polarized Centipede Fangs

[TonyT]

A small centipede was collected, into methanol, from litter in a white pine forest using a Berlese funnel.
It was placed into cedarwood oil until it became more-or-less translucent. Its fangs were removed and mounted in Euparal. I was interested in the musculature of the fangs

The most usual technique is to soak the specimen in either NaOH or KOH to dissolve the internal organs, this results in a beautifully transparent specimen after further treatment in a clearing agent such as cedarwood oil. Using this technique there is no need to remove the fangs from the head.

Olympus BH2, 10x Splan objective, Olympus BH2-KP simple polarizing attachment (1.25x), 2.5x projection eyepiece.

Top image: fangs under normal transmitted light
Bottom: under polarization

Centipedes are predators that impale their prey with very sharp fangs and inject a poison into them. Massive muscles in the fangs must generate a very strong force at the tips of the fangs.
The poison gland and the poison duct that opens just below the tip and can be seen in the images. Polarization isolates the different muscle groups, one set opens the fangs, another set closes them on the victim; photos show the fangs closed

[Wes]

Awesome, really cool how the muscles light up in different colors depending on their orientation.

[tgss]

Wonderful pictures Tony.
Tom W

[MichaelG.]

Superb images, Tony

Thanks for sharing them.

MichaelG.

[crb5]

Excellent resolution of the muscle sarcomere structure at around 4 um spacing - about twice that of vertebrate muscle.

[PeteM]

Awesome . . . and then some.

[viktor j nilsson]

Incredible, Tony.

I often use KOH to clear the small dipterans I study (or, used to study before I got kids... But I'm slowly getting back to it). But I haven't used it in combination with another clearing agent such as cedar wood. What is the advantage of combining them? And do you have a link to a protocol relevant for 2-5mm flies?

[TonyT]

Thanks everyone, so nice to get feedback.
Viktor - I tried to answer your question in a new post:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14071