I am interested in doing a geometric morphometrics study on bat wings and am considering using specimens fixed in formalin. To do this, I would like to have the bat wing stretched out to its fullest extent, take standardized pictures of the outstretched wings, and place landmarks on representative features. This method has been used commonly with live specimens (e.g. in this great paper by de Camargo and de Oliveira 2012 -- http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049734 ). However, the specimens I am considering using are fixed in formalin and vary somewhat in the amount of rigidity/flexibility. This makes me question how able I will be to stretch the specimens' wings out in a standardized manner.
Is there a way to restore flexibility to bat wings fixed in formalin, so that I could achieve a standardized degree of flexibility and stretch the wing to its fullest extent? Ideally, it would be great to restore the rigidity and when I am done. Anyone have any thoughts or experience changing flexibility of fixed specimens of other taxa, or literature to point me in the right direction?
It seems tough to compare outstretched, preserved bat wings given what that paper says, unless I have precise specimen preservation information and can use variables on preservation method (and body size, as the preservation effect is size-dependent as well) as covariates.. So maybe linear measurements of the bones that make up the digits (instead of the whole digit) would be more robust.
Wow, that article says "even dimensions of essentially
bony elements are affected by the preservation process (Lee, 1982)". (LCC. J. C. (1982). Accuracy and precision in anuran morphometrics: artifacts of preservation. Syst. Zool. 31: 266-281. )
That makes it sound like all bone measurements from preserved specimens have to be taken with a grain of salt.
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