I am interested in the cleaning and preservation of small animal skulls. The only problem is that I live in an appartment right outside of the city and I don't have access to a place away from the building to let the flesh decay and be eaten without the smell getting inside the building. I was wondering if I put a small head (raccoon) in a bucket with the beetles and set it on the porch, would the beetles do a quick couple day job, or would the skull probably stink for about a month until they finish? Any suggestions for skull cleaning in my limited space? Thanks.
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Beetles stink as bad as maceration... and you do NOT want beetles in your residence. It's very easy ot get an infestation if they are not perfectly contained (a very difficuult feat). These bugs when loose will eat carpet, wood, books, electrical wires and lead. You don't want them running around. As for stink? They smell as bad as macerationa nd when you aren't clenaing skulls you ahve problems.. what do you feed them to keep them alive? Once you start a colony you have to maintain that colony. All that eating they do results in a lot of leftover waste (frass). That frass stinks big time.
Maceration is OK. It stinks when ya open it, but thats part of the business. When you are done your skull - there's nothing to maintain so no ongoing smell. It also cleans bone better than beetles but there are drawbacks. Consult the archives for more info on maceration including step by step processes for the technique.
Simmering skulls is the fastes and least offensive to the nose - but also does the most damage to the bone and risks the overall quality and integity of the piece.
For an apartment situation I would recommend macerating and bring the container somewhere outdoors (drive somewhere in the boonies if need be) and dump it out there. Bring extra water to re-fill the container and seal it up - then come home.
Hope that helps =)
The whole idea of haveing a Beetle Colony seems like it would be easy, but when you bring up the point on maintenence and keeping the beetles contained, maybe I would be better off following your suggestions.
The whole idea of haveing a Beetle Colony seems like it would be easy, but when you bring up the point on maintenence and keeping the beetles contained, maybe I would be better off following your suggestions.
Now, you know I hate to disagree with regular folks who post information in which they are specialists, and in this case you probably should stick to giving information only on maceration/boiling, and your specialty of molding/casting.
I get a bit irritated every time you say that dermestid colonies stink as bad a maceration BECAUSE THEY DON'T - IF you run the colony correctly. A properly maintained colony stinks about as much as a slab of jerky setting on a table, and the colony, even after a couple months only gives off a slight odor of ammonia - no more than the windex you clean the windows with. Obviously you have never run an efficient, properly maintained colony. I might be used to it, but I would have no problem eating a sandwich in my colony room - and it is REAL hot right now. I did a fully adult Zebra skull in only 5 days, and now over the weekend I will have four Orangutan feet cleaned and ready by Monday.
Now I am not suggesting here that an amateur could learn the fine arts of dermestarium maintenance without problems, aka smell, but apartment dwelling would work. Somewhere in these archives or on the yahoo skull site, I described a setup with a closed aquarium vented out a window with an aquarium pump constantly pulling air in and exhausting it back out. Our Museum had a couple aquariums as an exhibit for three years with a constant flow of Raccoon skeletons and deer skulls running through it. There was an extra glass between the aquariums and the visitor window (which was open on both sides), and only once was there any smell. That was when an aquarium pump went out Friday night on a hot colony, and on Monday the moisture built up inside the aquarium which was slated for cleaning anyhow.
Should you write a bone preparation manual, I would suggest you not mention dermestids in it, as you need much more experience in operating them before you write about them. My first colony was home-grown and started long before you were born (circa 1969). I have now operated professional colonies continually since 1978. They are the way to go for professional skull/skeleton cleaning - that is why the professional companies use them.
Adam I would send them out to the pros.Lots of good guys and gals on here who do them.If your a collector its not much money to have them done and if your going to buy and sell just mark them up more.In your case a landlord could give you trouble with what you want to do.Not worth getting kicked out.
Although opinions from knowledgeable people such as yourself are always welcomed, your assumptions, PA, as to my experience with dermestids are just that - assumptions. You frequently assume (in error) that I am limited in what I know to molding and casting dinosaur fossil since that is my day job. The osteo work I do with my employer is largely done how they request it to be done and accounts for almost none of the total volume of osteo prep I do. Ultimately the decision on which technique to use is theirs and not mine, and the techniques I employ in my own studio differ greatly. As such, I don't think you really know just what experience I actually have with dermestariums? We've never discussed it any of our emails, nor have I really gotten into it here as I prefer maceration and focus and promote that in the majority of my related posts. Granted my experience with bugs is not the decades worth you have, but certainly I have enough experience to pass some of the learned knowledge along.
I have run several quite successful dermestariums in the past and now have one small one (by my standards), that suits my current needs. I still however prefer maceration whenever possible. Although the odour of both maceration and dermestariums do not bother myself, there are others who are not accustomed to it and find it offensive. I heard people in the bug room of a large museum reporting that the bug room there "smelled like death". I know people don't even like to be near me after I have been around the maceration tanks for any length of time even though I don't notice the smell 'clinging' to me. As a comparison - I also do not notice the smell of styrene any longer despite other people smelling it on me as soon as I enter a room. It's all about what one is accustomed to. I mentioned only once that they smell as bad as a maceration tank, and to beginners I am sure they do. Bad is bad, and I don't think you'll be so bold as to say bug enclosures and frass smell GOOD? So when I answer questions such as these for beginners, I take their exposure levels into consideration. To a beginner, I feel that the dermestariums would be an offensive odour. People who are frequently around such things do not mind the smells as much, having gotten quite used to them. To tell a beginner that they flat out do not smell I don't agree with however.
As for a manual on osteo prep? I think I would focus more on maceration then bugging them simply because I feel for the gameheads that most taxidermists work with, maceration is a superior method of prep for many reasons I have explained before. If you don't agree that is certainly your choice, but I know there are others in the osteo prep field in museums and private shops, who also agree maceration is superior. In any event, I will include whatever content I choose and describe whichever techniques I like. I would expect that when writing a manual or any papers that you would do the same and it would be rude for others to condemn you for that. Other peoples' opinions should not deter you from writing your work as you see fit, and so shall I not let other peoples' opinions effect my choices of what content to include.
Regardless of what topics I ultimately choose to include if and when I write a manual, I had planned to consult with colleagues and ask their opinions and present opposing views in my work so as to best afford readers an array of options and opinions. Debate leads to questions and discussion, and that leads to answers and evolved methods. Is it safe to assume you would not wish to contribute to the work based on your statements here? I guess I can scratch your name off the list of people to contact now then - LOL!
I may not appreciate the assumptions you make about me PA - but you still have my respect regarding your knowledge and contributions to the field.
To Adam - the glory of all this is that you now have options. If you feel that the ways described by PA will make for a non-offensive odour - feel free to try them if that is your only concern. The escape potential and damage potential these lil buggers can do would be more a deterrent to me than the smell though. Talk to an exterminator and get their views about what havoc they can wreak if an escape and subsequent infestation should occur. One adult female with eggs getting free is all it takes to get the ball rolling, so decide carefully.
It's been asked several times on here, but I've never seen it answered. Maybe you guys with your vast experience can answer the following: What is the best way to clean out the "Frass" and dead beetles w/o harming your live bugs? Obviously, with hundreds to thousands of bugs you can't pick out by hand the live ones and then clean and put them back. Any answers would be helpful. Thanks.
The way I do it is a tip I got from someone in a big museum, along with the ideas of some of the staff of the entomology / environmental pest management department of the school I went to, with a couple modifications of my own thrown in for kicks. It plays on the fact that dermestids and many other bugs don't like bright light....
I set up an inverted cone of sheet metal with a little bit of hardware cloth over the bottom (one inch circle) and an opening on top of about a foot across. A pail or bucket under the small end collects the bugs, and the entire thing needs to be contained in some sort of housing (a 5 gallon pail will work nicely). Use a light in one of those reflector dishes like you see resting on top of herptile tanks and position it over the large end. Fill the cone with frass (The museum was doing this to get bugs out of dirt - they had about 20 of these set up in a hallway - really cool to see!).
The light forces the bugs to dig deeper and get away from the light. Leave the set up like this for a day or two, then remove the top three inches of frass. Place this into a NEW aquarium and set it aside. Put your light apparatus back together and leave it for a couple days... keep repeating this as necessary. Eventually the bugs will end up escaping further from the the light until *plop* they come out the bottom. The hardware cloth over the bottom should be large enough to allow bugs to crawl through, but fine enough to prevent the frass from freely falling out. You can collect the bugs out of the containment container and put them in your bug tank as they come out, or leave them until you are done with the entire batch of frass.
By removing the frass to antoher container and leaving it there with some small food offerings off to one side (dry dog kibble works well - nothing TOO appetizing.. and put it on bare glass - offer no bedding in this tank), you get to make sure as much livestock as possible has been drawn out of the frass. Eggs that were in the frass can't emmigrate from the light and it would be a shame to "throw baby out with the bath water", so giving them a chance to hatch means less wasted critters for you. Offering no new bedding and less than optimal food will help ensure that you don't simply begin a new colony. Pick out larvae as you notice them and add to the existing colony.
One more note... I use a compact fluorescent bulb as my light source for my 'dermestid drive'. Incandescent bulbs generate heat that can dry out frass and fry eggs.. and will build up heat in the pail which can kill off larvae if you leave them in there too long. I find the bright light does well enough without the need for heat. Some places which utilize this cone technique for other bugs use the incandescent bulbs because they want to dry out the collected dirt at the same time as making it bright...
I'm not sure if this is how PA or anyone else does it.. but it's one of the most thorough and least labour intensive ways I have found for use with my guys.
Hope that helps =)
But sometimes there isn't sufficient time to answer because I am writing a casting and molding manual, specializing in Dinosaurs.
Aquariums are operated very differently depending on where your training is. For example the Field Museum of circa 20 years ago (Haven't seen it since), only cleans out their aquariums when they get full. Picture this if you will, they put a bed of cotton circa 1 inch deep, then placed skeletons in wire baskets or cardboard boxes, and the bugs would crawl out of the cotton into the boxes, eat the meat then crawl back. These skeletons are removed, more put in, as the bugs deposit much of the excrement, shed skins, etc, outside the box. FIVE years later, the box must be retired because the frass has filled the entire aquarium to the point that the box no longer fits in the aquarium - i.e. the aquarium is full of circa 5 gallons of bug frass. I will admit their colony stunk to high heaven.
I run my colonies quite similar to PA above. I rotate the aquariums probably on a 4 to six month basis, depending on the fat level in the meat, ambient humidity, amount of bugs per colony, etc. What you are asking then, is how to extract only the live bugs out of the aquarium. Basically, you "bait" them out. I always have the colony with a bed of cotton on which is placed thin cardboard boxes across the entire surface - larger envelope boxes, lid and botton, cut with one side off fit the opening well. There might be 1/8 inch between the box and the glass the whole way around, and the boxes are not taped together. What I mean is, the lid is placed first, with only three sides, then the bottom, cut down to about one inch in height, is placed on top - also with only three sides. Therefore the box bottom is one continous opening, so that bug can also crawl between the open seam between top and bottom of the envelope box. A large skull can be placed the entire length without hitting abutments.
Smaller skeletons are placed within boxes on top of the cardboard, also with height at least 3/4 inch to prevent carry-over of parts. Warblers, sparrows and a few other bird sclerotic rings, fit almost perfect on an adult bettle and they end up wearing them like hula hoops and carry them into the box. Small birds should have higher boxes because of this.
The usefull tools in care of the bugs are a series of polystyrene boxes of various sizes, a 3 inch paintbrush, a flat spatula without any holes, and numerous cardboard boxes. As the slkeleton of say a mole is 90% clean, the box containing it is dumped into a polystyrene box - I use old 70's era shoe boxes. Then the frass/bugs/bones are sorted through, and the bones placed in a glass jar so that any remaining bugs within the skeleton intercticies (sic?) will finish off the remaining meat. Also, if you leave the skeleton in the presentation box until it is clean, it will take you 30 minutes at least to make sure you have every last bone because there will be twice as much frass and dozens of parts vs. only a few. The skeleton is left inside the glass box a week or more until it is sufficiently clean, the contents dumped into the sorting shoe box, and then the frass and live bugs are placed into the "crawling out of box" (for want of a better term).
The frass from the original presentation box, is placed together with all the frass from every other presentation box, into another cardboard box inside the aquarium, usually placed above the base by placing it on another smaller box - say the lid of an earing box. Any live bugs will climb/crawl out of this box, back into the aquarium. Smaller "Crawling out boxes" are then combined to make a larger box, and after a couple weeks the frass/junk/feathers/fur/dirt/etc. is then removed from the dermestarium. After you empty out the bottom of the aquarium after a weeks of eating, a paintbrush is used to brush the bugs/frass into one corner, and the spatula is used to scoop them into a crawling box. Thus the surface never gets built up with frass.
So, to empty a colony of bugs, when you sweep up the bottom, and empty the presentation boxes, you simply add them to the next aquarium. There will still be numerous bugs below the carboard, but you will add additional boxes on top - usually of smaller skeleton, or fewer of them. The bugs will crawl out from below the surface in the cotton, and fill up the skeleton containing boxes, and you will remove these and sweep up the bottom again. After a few times of this, most of the bugs will have crawled out of the bottom, and if not, you can bait them with jiucy pieces of fresh jerky, into the box, where you can sweep and transfer them to the starter colony.
I use polystyrene sweater boxes for the larger skeletons and skulls, and after they are cleaned thoroughly, I put pieces of jerkey in the swaeter box which will draw the buags away from the skull, whence they can be added to a colony. Larger skulls I use plastic 5 gallon buckets, garbage cans, or in a few instances, a larger plastic tub big enough for a complete cape buffalo head even with horns. It is all a matter of scale - hummingbirds to giraffs - though I have yet to do an elephant yet.
Frass never builds up in the bottom of the aquariums that fast - four to six months is about the soonest I need to change each colony, but I usually have at any one time, a starter colony for a month, the hottest one or two colonies, and the extraction colony where I am closing it down over the month I am starting one.
The advantage of multiple colonies, is that you creat "waves" of dermetids. When there is a major hatching of bettles, and they get to mating up a storm, a couple weeks later, there are hundreds/thousands of small dermestids. Two months later, or so, these are a huge wave of very hungry larger larvae. But in between, you started another colony with other adults, which in two months will be the hot colony. If you get my meaning, I stagger the colonies, so that I always have a colony that I can put larger skeletons in.
Bugrooms take some work, but, hands down they are the most efficient way to do things, or else Skullsunlimited, or the skull works, or a dozen other companies wouldn't be turning out the thousands of specimens that they do (not to mention that University Based Museums or stand alone Museums almost always use this method.
There are many tricks to operating an eficient, clean, non-smelling colony. I have never seen one operated the way I operate mine, but then in addition to reading damn near everything on the subject ever printed (hundreds of articles), I have instituted a regimen that works well to clean every skeleton to uniform museum standards, without fall-apart that maceration would do on skeletal work, and some skull work.
There are a number of professional skeleton companies out there, and if a thorough manual was written, it would create several dozen other companies doing the same thing. In skeletal work the biggest problems are degreasing, and the large companies have proper facilities to handle the waste products created. Several dozen fly-by-night operations would probably not be so environmentally concious. There are macertion manuals out there, as well as a nice series of skelton assembly books - though I don't think there is good publicity of the books. Raven, you probably don't have these books - I can't remember if I forwarded the info when I sent the packet a while back.
I know of the assembly manuals if they are the same ones Im thinking of? Each manual focuses on a different mammal; moose, porpoise etc? I've already bought up about as much as I can find from all the popular bookstores and am now exploring forensic entomolgy to gain even more information. As for strictly maceration manuals... nope - I haven't seen any yet as to your assertion that there is a lack of good publicity of those books. Where can these be obtained? Also, if you know of a source for papers from universities etc. (like the one you sent me before - and again - Thank You), I would love to read those as well. I have pretty much exhausted the commercial supply of related materials, but not my interest in reading up on the topic. Any contact info on the matter would be much appreciated if you had the time to forward it to me =)
To address the comment about why bugging is so popular amongst larger establishments; I feel it is in part a matter of convenience and acceptance in a lot of cases more than overall better quality. Bugging osteological items is certainly faster than macerating them, and safer than simmering them, and in commercial applications especially (such as the above mentionned Skulls Unlimited etc), that is going to be a very decisive factor. Does this mean it is a 'superior' method? In some instances certainly. The thought of cleaning small passerines via bacterial cultures for example terrifies me - LOL! I often point out that the best way to clean bones depends on what the bones are. A deer skull for example I feel is best cleaned via maceration. The bacteria can reach places even the smallest instar of dermste cannot. For items like fish, birds or poorly ossified cranial matter however I recommend bugs so as to preserve the cartilige (see the post re: turtle skull prep not long ago for example).
The paper you sent me written by D. G. Matthiesen was quite interesting and made some of the same points that I make here about maceration being a more thorough form of osteo prep. Her comments sounded familiar to me when she said she is trying to open up the use of maceration to others in the museum and university labs as a form of osteo prep. It is often a struggle here for example, to persuade people to use maceration, as 'simmering' with sal soda is so ingrained as being "THE way" to do it... it's hard to change that mind set. In larger commercial applications and museums/universities using dermestid set ups, I suspect there is an element of that 'mind set' there as well. It is often pointed out that bugs are the best all around choice and that is why museums have used it for so long. Is it really that they are best, or is there a matter of reluctance to change accepted practices simply due to the longevity of those techniques? Fossil conservation has undergone huge changes in the accepted practices over recent years. Ways that projects were carried out in decades past are simply not acceptable any longer. I suspect that in a much smaller way, through the work of people like Diana Matthiesen, that some changes in how modern bone material is handled will change as well.
At this time I want to thank you for another great discussion.. I always appreciate threads like this where ideas can be exchanged without name calling and attacks... it's very refreshing and leads to much learning.
Time for me to email you now however as there a couple of things I'd like to discuss that are best left off the forum.... hopefully you'll find time to respond. Talk soon...
I actually understood most of that and now I have a way to try and clean out my boxes.
I have recently aquired some beetles and am quickly realizing that I don't really know what I'm doing! There are so many different opinions on how to get your colony going that I am trying to seek out some "quick tips" on some things that I am having a hard time with.
I currently have them in a 20 gal aquarium with about an inch of dog food at the bottom (substrate). My top is not very secure, so I was thinking about putting plexi-glass on top (with a hole cut into it, covered by mesh). My first question is: do you think plexi-glass will work for this or can they eat through plexi-glass. I am very concerned about them getting out and eating everything not only in my lab, but the entire facility.
They have also been climbing up the sides of the tank, which is a bit disconcerning considering I scraped off the silicone. Maybe you have some suggestions on how to get them to stop climbing?
Also, they don't seem too interested in the skull that is in there. I may have put the skull in there too early. I read somewhere that you should put a skull in right away to start your colony, but I'm wondering if I should have waited for a couple months or so.
I'm also having a hard time keeping the humidity up. What do you use to keep humidity up?
I've been trying a couple different things, but I am still not happy with it. Any suggestions you can give me would really help at this point. Thanks.