Today's menu: Virginia possum

October 4, 2018 7:10 AM

For gentle enjoyment of our impending decay: the Virginia Museum of Natural History's dermestid flesh-eating beetle live cam. More details here. "When the colony is really active, they can be given a mouse whole - without skinning or gutting the specimen - and finish it in a single day."
posted by mediareport (19 comments total)

Enter Liberty Hightower, museum research technician and overlord of the museum's dermestid colony since 2014.

Look, I know a superhero origin story when I see one, OK?
posted by zamboni at 7:17 AM on October 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

Be sure to go full screen on a computer with the livecam, for full impact.
posted by beagle at 7:20 AM on October 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I wonder if they keep all the bones, seems like these little buggers would be great for cleaning meat and such off bones so you can bleach em or whatever it is you do to have fun bones.
posted by GoblinHoney at 7:20 AM on October 4, 2018

I find focusing on the beetles crawling over the teeth and face does wonders for my dread of dying.
posted by mediareport at 7:21 AM on October 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

What would prompt anyone to post this? *shudder*
posted by Cris E at 7:25 AM on October 4, 2018

*raises ghostly arms*

Boooo!
posted by mediareport at 7:37 AM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Dermestids are great, but you need to keep them under control in your museum. If they get out, they can eat specimens you rather they wouldn’t.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:40 AM on October 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I wonder if they keep all the bones, seems like these little buggers would be great for cleaning meat and such off bones so you can bleach em or whatever it is you do to have fun bones.
posted by GoblinHoney

That's the point. They're not just keeping beetles to keep them.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:41 AM on October 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

YES
posted by Going To Maine at 7:41 AM on October 4, 2018

I seem to recall an episode of "American Gothic" where Gary Cole chained up Bruce Campbell inside a coffin with these little bastards. That scene still haunts me two decades later.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:34 AM on October 4, 2018

I clicked through, but before the stream started I noticed that today's "menu" is an opossum. I like possums (they're gentle! they eat ticks! their body temp is too low to carry rabies! the moms carry like eight kids on their back! they're misunderstood!), so a nope from me today. I appreciated that the site gives a heads-up about the menu.
posted by lisa g at 9:41 AM on October 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

The title reminds me of a recipe I read 20 years ago in an Appalachian cookbook for possum. “Procure possum. Put possum on board and bake in the oven until done. Throw away possum and eat the board. There’s no good way to make possum palatable.”

Still my favorite recipe.
posted by OmieWise at 12:13 PM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

yeah no
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:21 PM on October 4, 2018

Well, I read that as "Vagina Possum" and was extraordinarily let down by the article
posted by JenThePro at 12:45 PM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Everything about this post makes me inordinately happy. Yay science!
posted by flyingsquirrel at 12:54 PM on October 4, 2018

I thought someone else would surely post the "woman puts weird thing into car, which eventually erupts with dermestid larvae" story from earlier this year, but, seeing none, am obliged to so post.
posted by PandaMomentum at 1:32 PM on October 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Wow, that's really gross, but not as upsetting as what I initially thought the link would be: Vagina Possum.
posted by latkes at 9:21 AM on October 5, 2018

The bones are almost completely clean now.
posted by mediareport at 6:19 AM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Today's menu: groundhog.
posted by zamboni at 7:26 PM on October 11, 2018 [2 favorites]