[Nhcoll-l] Hide beetles

[Emily M. Braker]

Tonya,

Ideally dermestaria should be housed in a separate building than collections, but in practice, many museums host beetle colonies and collections under the same roof. It is not for lack of risk to collections - D. maculatus will absolutely feed on protein- and keratin-based specimens. Luckily, there are many physical barriers and policy measures you can employ to prevent the beetles from accessing collections. Here at CU our beetle colony is kept on a separate floor to segregate it from collections. We rub Vaseline around the inner lip of our tanks, which also have mesh lids. Should we have any escapees, our tanks sit in secondary receptacles (Tupperware totes and a horse trough) to help contain them, and we also have sticky tape around the door as well as a door sweep. Freezing skeletons after they have been processed is a must and hopefully will calm your existential dread! Even if you attempt to pick off every last larva, some are so small or deeply lodged in bone cavities that only freezing will ensure that you do not introduce them into the collection when you install your skeleton specimen. We keep a chest freezer in the beetle room and typically freeze for a minimum of 72 hours post-processing and have no known damage to collections from colony escapees/hitchhikers.

Best,
Emily,

p.s. I have heard museum lore about humidity conditions affecting beetles, especially that high relative humidity (>70%) can encourage the beetles to fly, though I have never witnessed this and would be curious about other institutions' experience. We have an arid climate ~25% most days, and the beetles are still very much active, but of course they have access to resources in the tank.

Emily Braker
Vertebrate Collections Manager, Zoology Section
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
265 UCB, Bruce Curtis Building
Boulder, CO 80309-0218
Phone: 303-492-8466
http://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/research-collections/vertebrates



From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Crace)
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2021 10:36 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Hide beetles

Hello all,

I was wondering if any of you could provide insight into Dermestes maculatus, the hide beetle. I just read a paper (Strang & Jacobs 2019) stating that D. maculatus was not able to live outside the colony (at the Smithsonian) due to 'humidity and other requirements', but sadly there wasn't a citation. Likewise, I have seen dermestid colonies housed inside collection buildings (such as at the Field Museum), apparently with no threat to the skin collections also housed nearby. I have not been able to pin point down why hide beetles wouldn't be a threat to museum specimens, but I would love to hear any experiences with them or thoughts on what their infestation risk is to collections. They certainly can eat a lot when they get going! I would love it if I didn't have to feel a slight sense of existential dread every time I put a newly created skeleton specimen away (thoroughly cleaned and decontaminated, but still...).

Thanks!

Cheers,

Tonya
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