What do you think of when you hear “flesh‑eating beetles”? Something alien in a science fiction movie? Maybe those swarming scarab beetles from The Mummy — huge, exotic, and terrifying as they crawl across the screen and devour every living thing (and person) in their path. But did you know the Ohio History Connection has its own colony of flesh‑eating beetles?

Our colony lives in the natural history lab – and they’ve got their very own room! When people tentatively enter the “Dermestid Room” and gain the courage to peer into the large plastic storage container housing the beetles, their initial apprehension fades disappointment sets in. “That’s it!?”

They may not be scary, but they are incredibly helpful! Flesh-eating beetles are members of the beetle family Dermestidae, commonly known as Skin Beetles or Carpet Beetles. The species we employ at the Ohio History Connection is the Hide Beetle, Dermestes maculatus, which is found worldwide - on every continent except Antarctica. Adult hide beetles are only about ¼ - 1/2 inch in length and the larvae can be up to about ¾ inch.

For us, the real workhorses are the larvae, not the adults. We use the larvae to clean animal skeletons for our comparative skeletal collection. After we remove the hide, organs, and major muscles of a specimen, we introduce them into the beetle colony. When we’re preparing delicate specimens like bird skulls or small bones we want to keep together, we need to be careful and remove the specimen at the appropriate time. Once the soft tissue is gone the larvae will sometimes eat the thin bones of the skull or the cartilage between small bones, like in the feet, causing them to fall apart. The larvae consume the remaining soft tissue, leaving us with a nice, mostly-clean skeleton – saving staff hours in the tedious (and smelly) job of preparing skeletons.

Outside the lab, dermestid beetles play an important role in nature. The beetles arrive after fly larvae (maggots) remove most of the tissue from a deceased animal. Then, the dermestids complete the final cleaning, consuming the dried bits and pieces of tissue remaining on the skeleton.

But what about living tissue? There has only been one verified case of dermestid larvae attacking a living animal. This was on a farm where large, inactive male turkeys were housed in an overcrowded pen. Beetle larvae burrowed just a short way under the skin of some of the birds. Other than this one disturbing incident, dermestids are not known to consume living tissue.

How long does it take the larvae to clean a skeleton? That depends on the size of the colony, i.e. how many larvae are present, and the size of the skeleton. A colony can vary from a few dozen individuals when food is scarce, to thousands of larvae when there’s plenty to eat. With an average sized colony a mouse skull can be cleaned in a day or two, while the skeleton of a raccoon could take a week or more.

When I first suggested acquiring dermestid beetles for the museum, I was met with hesitation from the history curators. Why would we want to introduce a tank of hundreds of destructive pests into the museum!? Dermestid beetles, of which there are many species, are major pests in museum collections! Some species attack silk, wool, keratin, and wood – not to mention taxidermy specimens in natural history collections. To prevent potential problems, we developed a rigorous plan for how the colony is housed and how we introduce and remove specimens from their container.

For over 150 years, Dermestid beetles have worked in museums to clean skeletons. They are the best employees; they do a wonderful job, work 24 hours a day, and all you gotta do is feed ‘em!

Dave Dyer - Natural History Curator

Note: We do not kill animals to obtain skeletons for the collection. Specimens come from animals that died accidentally, such as roadkill, those killed by predators, and birds that fly into windows. We hold state and federal permits that allow us to collect and house specimens of native animals.