>My friend from Ukraina asked me for a help in determining anatomy of very
>small tick, she works on. It is too small for classical anatomy study,
>and when she realised, that we have in Warsaw confocal microscope, she
>was sure, that I can help her. I am working on the cytoskeleton, and have
>never met any method allowing to unspecyficaly fluorescence stain insect
>or spiders. I hope, that here may be anybody knowing such method.

Dear Pawel,

I would suggest using scanning electron microscopy for your imaging, but if
this is not available then the clsm can be quite useful.  We have found
that many insect cuticles autofluoresce at the 514nm line of the argon
laser. For internal features, the autofluorescence remains post-clearing.
If you require recipes for clearing, please contact me directly.
Cheers,

Eric Hines
Microscopy Centre
CSIRO Div of Entomology
PO Box 1700
Canberra, Australia