Hello, I'm in the first year of my PhD project "Toxicology of Little Penguins". And while not technically a marine mammal, the little penguin is a top preditor and as such is susceptible to bioaccumulation of toxins. Particularily, we are interested in heavy metals. The study colony is at St. Kilda pier in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, Australia. The shipping channels within the bay are currently undergoing major dredge works which is thought to release toxins into the food chain. We plan to sample blood, feather, scats, eggs and carcasses. We are also very fortunate to have 150 pre-dredging blood samples from this colony from known-sex penguins, which were spare samples collected as part of a different project two years ago. Since the samples were not taken specifically for heavy metal determination we have the following challenges: - variable, unmeasured amount of full blood (around 60 to 80 microgram) stored in variable, unmeasured amount of 70% ethanol - stored in plastic vials at room temperature. - we know the sex and the ID of the donor penguin Does anyone in the Marmam community have any ideas on how to go about measuring the amount of blood in each vial within these constraints? My understanding is that it's not as easy as evaporating the ethanol and weighting the blood. Any help is greatly appreciated! Best regards, *Annett Finger* *PhD Candidate* Ecology and Sustainability School of Engineering and Science Victoria University PO BOX 14428 (St Albans Campus) MCMC 8001 Victoria, Australia Phone 61 3 9919 2601 Fax 61 3 9919 2465 Email Annett.Finger <Annett.Finger@live.vu.edu.au>*@live.vu.edu.au* Web www.vu.edu.au