Flesh-eating beetles clean up on European mounts

European-mount skull and antlers
In this March 2, 2011 photo, Allen Edberg holds a finished European-mount skull and antlers that had been cleaned by beetles instead of boiling and bleaching the skull, in Duluth, Minn.
AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King

By SAM COOK, Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — The steel building where Allen Edberg works on furs is lit by only two light bulbs dangling on long cords from the ceiling. When you enter on a bright winter day, you will need to pause to let your eyes adjust.

Edberg, a trapper, is at his table, working on a beaver hide. He puts it down and walks to a large chest freezer in one corner of the dirt-floored room.

"They're in here," says Edberg, 47, of Fredenberg Township north of Duluth.

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Oh, yes, they are. Edberg lifts the lid of the freezer, which is unplugged and not freezing anything. In the bottom of the freezer lies a deer skull with a nice set of antlers attached. Crawling all over the white bone of the skull are beetles. Dermestid beetles. Hungry dermestid beetles that are eating any remaining flesh on the deer skull.

"I just got 'em this last summer," Edberg says.

He bought the beetles for exactly this purpose, to clean the skulls of deer for European mounts, a form of deer mount that has become popular with Minnesota hunters. In a European mount, the antlers and skull remain intact, mounted as one. The mounts are more economical than the traditional "shoulder" mounts done by taxidermists in which the antlers are mounted on the head and cape of the deer.

Allen Edberg
In this March 2, 2011 photo, Allen Edberg of Fredenberg Township shows the converted freezer in which his colony of Dermestid beetles feed on a deer skull, in Duluth, Minn.
AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King

"It went a little nuts," Edberg says. "I'm backed up like you can't believe."

Edberg's beetles are busy. They crawl up the buck's nostrils, trundle along the buck's teeth, creep in and out of the buck's eye sockets.

A few of the beetles are adults, but most are larvae representing several beetle generations. Itty-bitty beetles 1/16th of an inch long. Larger larvae a quarter-inch long. Adults up to half an inch long.

The bottom of the freezer is littered with the discarded exoskeletons of growing larvae, which resemble smallish husks of sunflower seeds. Edberg keeps the freezer at an un-freezer-like 80 degrees.

A beetle lives about 30 days, Edberg says, laying eggs every two to four days. It is the larvae of young beetles that do most of the flesh-eating work, he says.

The beetles can clean up a deer skull in about a day and a half, Edberg says. He finishes it by applying a paste of hydrogen peroxide. He charges $55 for a European mount. The average price of a shoulder mount is about $525, said Randy Bowe of Bowe Taxidermy in Duluth.

Bowe charges $95 for both European mounts and standard antler-on-a-plaque mounts, he said. European mounts are a matter of taste, he said.

"Some people say, I don't want a skull in my house.' Some people really like them," Bowe said. "They're something new on the market. They're getting more popular."

Skulls
In this March 2, 2011 photo, four skulls cleaned by Dermestid beetles are ready for sale by Fredenberg Township trapper Allen Edberg. Clockwise from left, a bear skull, a white-tailed buck, a muskrat and a skunk.
AP Photo/The Duluth News-Tribune, Bob King

For a true trophy buck, most hunters still prefer a shoulder mount, he said.

Bowe doesn't use beetles to clean his skulls for European mounts, he said.

"I haven't invested in the beetles," Bowe said. "I don't want them in my shop. I boil and bleach."

Edberg ordered a starter kit of dermestid beetles from Montana last summer. The kit, with one starter colony of insects, cost about $400, he said. He fed them beaver skulls, bobcat skulls, mink and muskrat skulls. Edberg has access to plenty of skulls.

"Once they were eating up to a quarter-pound a day, I could put a (deer) head in there," he said.

Clearly, if your olfactory system is working properly, you can detect one downside of hanging out near a colony of dermestid beetles at work.

"They stink," Edberg says.

That aroma, and having to feed the beetles during the off-season, is too great an inconvenience for many who do European mounts. But if you search Google for "dermestid beetles," you'll find that it's a healthy industry.

The dermestid family of beetles, widespread native to the United States, also are used by museums to clean skulls for display. They are used in forensics because the arrival of dermestid beetles can indicate how long an organism has been dead.

Edberg isn't sure how many European mounts he has done for hunters.

"Tons," he says.

He understands the appeal of European mounts.

"I've got mounts in the house, too," he says, "but how many can you afford to do?"

While Edberg fleshes and stretches hides that he and others have trapped, his beetles chew silently in the freezer. Edberg has assigned them not only buck skulls, but bear skulls, an alligator skull, muskrat skulls and skunk skulls.

"I'm doing a wolf skull for the Lake Superior Zoo," he said.

Edberg isn't sure how many beetles he has now.

"Thousands," he says. "I'll probably break them up into four or five colonies this summer."

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Information from: Duluth News Tribune

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)