A hobby that kept on growing, together with the number of beetles.
Dermestid beetles are the variety of beetle species within the genus Dermestes. They are quite small, the adults generally not bigger that 10 mm. These beetles are nature's cleaning crew by eating carcasses and that is their main trait that characterizes them. The larvae as well as the adults feed on animal products such as meat, but they absolutely won't bite you in your living fingers while handling them. They are a relatively easy species to keep, even when you are new to beetle breeding.
These beetles can be part of the cleaner crew in bioactive reptile terraria and insect enclosures. They will feed on dead insects and sheds. Some species can also feed on plant materials including grains. Those species are more able to survive on a diet of kibble when carrion is scarce. All species are different in their qualities.
Due to their special diet, dermestid beetles can help you create museum-quality animal skeletons. The beetles work delicate enough leave bone undamaged and even cartilage often stays intact. Pet owners that would like a pet memorial in the shape of a skull or bones, may find the thought reassuring that their deceased pet is fuzed into a new life cycle during the cleaning proces and cleaned in a natural manner.
My name is Sarah Mahie and I am an ecologist by profession. I gained my first colony of dermestid beetles, the species D. frischii, during my Bachelor study in Applied Biology. It's that exact colony that is still thriving in my care, since 2017, to this day! My interest in these beetle species grew quick and two years later, in 2019, I gained a colony of D. lardarius followed by D. maculatus. And it didn't stop there. In 2020 I established a colony of D. undulatus and in 2021 a colony of D. haemorrhoidalis. The newest addistions are from 2024, them being D. murinus and D. ater. I'm sure those won't be the last.
All dermestid beetles are kept in homogeneous colonies of a singular species and they can be carefully shipped throughout the European Union. You can buy different species of dermestid beetles in the shop.
Vendor at De Duystere Markt, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2025.
My contribution to science:
This time I encountered one of my skeletons on the world wide web as a banner of America's Earliest Museums (figure 1). It is the black rat (Rattus rattus) skeleton I have build. The black rat is a bit smaller than a brown rat, with a more slender skull and a longer tail. The tail is up to 130% of its body size!
During the commission of Sushi, the pet fish that got an X-ray, I received a second commission for a fish skeleton - and this one also has an extraordinary story. Meet Pablo, named after Pablo Escobar.
I always feel honored when asked to work with a deceased pet. It was a being that was loved and cared for. And that, for sure, was also the case for the following animal.
I accidentally stumbled upon the website www.reptileevolution.com since they used the woolly derby's oppossum skeleton I build to highlight the traits of the genus Caluromys. And what an interesting website it is!
This text was written for the Newsletter Painted Dog Conservation: Dog Call 12, 144.
The swift fox (Vulpes velox) and the kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) are considerably the most similar species of canids, to such an extend that some scientists debate if they are subspecies of each other instead of different species. Currently, they are classified as separate species and exhibit morphological and genetic differences.
