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  • Energy from Death exhibit
  • A decomposing mouse inside the Energy from Death exhibit
  • Animals are a source of energy-rich food even after they die.
  • Animals are a source of energy-rich food even after they die.
  • Energy from Death exhibit
  • A decomposing mouse inside the Energy from Death exhibit
  • Energy from Death Side View
  • Energy from Death

Energy from Death

One creature’s end is another’s beginning.

A decaying carcass makes a perfect meal for an assortment of scavengers, including the dermestid beetles you can see in this exhibit. As they feast on these carcasses, the dermestid beetles and their larvae get their energy and nutrients from the dried flesh, skin, and other tissues.


Where:   Gallery 4: Living Systems
Exhibit Developers:   Sitara Cave, Richard Gagnon, and Denise King, 2001

What’s going on?

While it may appear there are two distinct scavengers at work in this exhibit, they are actually one and the same—dermestid beetles—in their smaller, brown, larval stage and as larger, shiny, black adults.

Demestid beetle and larva
Demestid beetle and larva

Dermestid beetles are used by museums and bone collectors—and now and then by criminal investigators—to clean the flesh from specimens.

Creature corpses of all stripes have found their way into this decay display: cats, rats, snakes, frogs. Most often what you’ll find here are rats intended as pet food, purchased online and delivered frozen.

 

Going further

In this exhibit, dermestid beetles have the carcasses to themselves, but in the wild, they compete with many other insect scavengers.

On a fresh carcass, most of the insects are flies. Dermestids and other beetles arrive later on in the decomposition process. The types of insects on a carcass can help forensic scientists estimate how long ago the animal died.

 

External resources

Flesh-Eating Dermestid Beetle Time-Lapse. © 2014 California Academy of Sciences.

Living on Death. © Denise King.

 
Phenomena: Decomposition, Natural Frequency
Aliases: Living on Death, Rotting Carcass
Collections: Field Trip Guide: It's Alive!, Traits of Life

More to explore

Energy from Death Side View
Animals are a source of energy-rich food even after they die.
Energy from Death
Animals are a source of energy-rich food even after they die.
Field Trip Chaperone Guide: It's Alive!
Field Trip Chaperone Guide: It's Alive!

Based on kindergarten NGSS standards; appropriate for grades K–2

Related exhibits

Big Wood: 300 Years of Photosynthesis
Big Wood: 300 Years of Photosynthesis

Explore the complexity and enormity of this grand, once-living organism.

Still Life
Still Life

An impossibly beautiful bowl of fruit decays at an accelerated pace via time-lapse editing.

Live Chicken Embryos
Live Chicken Embryos

Take a look at living chicken embryos in various stages of development.

Look Inside a Developing Fish
Look Inside a Developing Fish

Use a microscope to investigate developing zebrafish eggs.


IMLS acknowledgment

This web project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MA-30-16-0175-16].

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