I found a horse skull about 6 months ago, it was picked fairly clean by the coyotes but of course still had some dried flesh on it. It came home with tons of various bugs in it so I put it in a 10 gallon tank to let the bugs finish cleaning it. Six months later and very little cleaning done on the bugs part. Do I not have the right bugs? Can take pictures to email, please respond back in an email as my internet won't always let me into this site.
Thanks in advance,
Jennifer Roof
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Hard to say if the bugs are right or wrong if ya dont tell us what bugs ya have... It coudl simply be the meat isn't prepped properly.
Unless you really wanna worrya bout saivng some bugs to start a good colony (assuming they are dermestes), just fill that 10 gallon tank with water and macerate the skull....
Now seeing the name of my daughter on this forum was a shock, but I know you're not the same person as she's a lawyer without the blood and guts agenda. LOL. Email me and tell me where you're from as there ain't that many of us on the map.
I honestly don't know, a bunch got carried home with the skull, if anyone wants to email I try to get some pictures of the various bugs. I wanted to try to avoid soaking the skull as all the teeth are badly cracked.
Jennifer
There is about 10 different kids of bugs in my skull, most of them bite too as I found out the hard way:( Does anybody happen to have a picture of what dermestes look like? Are they even bugs that can be found in Arizona?
If the skull is already pretty clean, I'd try doing a long gentle boil on it. The flesh doesn't sound like it would be a problem to remove. Then degrease and whiten with the proper chemicals. If the teeth fall out, glue them back in. You can't always afford to wait for the bugs to do their jobs.
Jennifer search the archives using the words "Raven" and "maculatus" and you'll find a post I made about dermestes that explain how and where to find them as well as a description of their appearance for ID =)