All posts tagged: dermestids

The benevolent dictator at Christmas.

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My absolute dominion over the thousands of beings in my WidedEyedDemesne is of the gentlest nature. This is my moral and ethical choice – as you know, with great power comes great responsibility. In the holiday season, I strive to make the lives of my WideEyedSubjects shine brightly. For Hamish the Corgi, a stuffed Olaf the Snowman waits under the tree – Sven the Reindeer is sitting next to him, having no notion that he is a gift for Miss Tibbit and that his days are short. Fitz (the betta fish are always named Fitz) will have a new moss ball. Wiggins the Ancient Cat received a teeth cleaning and three extractions – the vet tells me this was a gift of life. This almost made my heart swell in direct proportion to the shrinking of the WideEyedTreasury. The hundreds of red wigglers in the worm bin, so content to ooze in the dim moistness – I’ve got three eggs shells and some mushroom stems for them. Wiggle worms, and squirm. Enjoy your holiday feast and …

I dreamed of flesh eating beetles.

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I dreamed of flesh eating beetles and mortifying tissue and woke with the sense memory of the smell of decay. I blame the Turdus migratorius from yesterday. It wasn’t his fault, poor little robin, that one of the students found him dead on the road and collected him for the lab. It certainly wasn’t his fault that a skilled graduate student showed me how to skin and eviscerate a little songbird using his carcass. We recorded data for science and the permits, and plucked and skinned and removed blobs from inside him using forceps. We wrapped him in cheesecloth (did the cheesecloth company ever imagine such a use?) and put him in the lab fridge to dry out for a couple of days. It made me think of dry aging a nice roast. Might have to hit the butcher later. The dermestid tank, the flesh eating beetle habitat, was right next to us while we worked on the bird. Did they watch us prepare their supper? The larvae will creep through the cheesecloth and snack …