Exuviae in ear or nose?

[darwin]

Regular it happens, that exuviae or dead beatles stay in the ethmoid bones or tympanic cavities. Are there ways to get them out with little damage, a solvent e.g.? I take tweezers if possible or bleech until thea are invisible, but optimal is different.

[Guus]

Yes it is really annoying, especially because the larvae are so extremely fat, that they will leave grease spots if left in the skull. So you have to get them out, even if you can whiten them as much as you can (which I never succeeded in actually, they always stay yellow (larvae) or black (beetles)). If you go through the archives you'll find several ways people get rid of them, putting cleaned skulls in a cold environment, shake, clap, hot water etc.
I only use beetles for smaller animals and macerate all my larger stuff, so I place the small skulls and skeletons in a box where the beetles can come out by themselves and find some meat they can start eating instead. Sometimes larvae get stuck in a spine for example and then it is almost impossible to get them out. Careful picking with tweezers and a needle might do the job in such a case... Hope others can come in with their favourite methods!

[PLTannery]

Dental Picks....

[grf68]

I've used a small wire to get them out,either try pushing it out to where you can grab it with tweezers or just break it up into small enough pieces that can be flushed out with some water.

[Westside]

Sometimes if you let the skull dry before whiting I hit it with some compressed air and blow them out.

[darwin]

Ok thanks for the response. Perhaps one day I will find something that dissosiates it.

[Orkman-X]

what I do is the following: after taking out a skull of the beatle-housing, I put him in water of around 70 Fahrenheit.
If the water is very cold, the bugs don't seem to react fast and the faster they react, the slimmer the chance they drown before they can leave the skull. (i guess some thermal shock).
In the following 20 minutes, adult beetles will leave the skull and climb on top of it to escape the water. There I handpick em and recover em (no need to let em die I guess)
The larvae will also try to leave but will sink. You can try if you would to salvage them too by pouring the water through a sieve.
After about 20 minutes, it seems to me maximum results are reached. Some larvae grow too big in specific cavities and can't be saved it would seem. Those I try pulling gently with very fine tweezers.
Hope this helps.