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I have charged 65.00 for the past 7 years. Price is still the same. Thank you for asking.

i imagine you are going to stay busy. Nice work!

Very nice work.

Please PM me your contact info. and price list.

inbound FOs, Thanks

I though this was for cleaned beetle skulls, I wanted to see what the little suckers looked like.

Post a pic of them little buggers at work.

This is one I had from a few years ago. Colony has grown several million since. I go in my beetle house early in the morning when it is cool to keep out flies. It hotter than a chili fart outside right now. I need to get a current picture.

THose look more like Larvae than beetles. Ive seen some beetle colonies before, but the ones ive seen, the beetles are doing most of the eating...

The actual beetle is the mature adult and is the egg layer. The ones you see in the picture do the work. The larve are the eaters. The floor of my large box is about 4" thick of moving eaters. I have them all named too. They are on maintenance level of feed production now. I feed 3-5 lbs of boneless meat every 48 hours. I am bringing the colony up to maximum potential for the upcoming season in just a few weeks. I put in a mature cow elk skull with eyes, lower jaw and tongue intact and it was completely cleaned in 2 days. I normally feed customers heads completely prepped with excess meat removed including brains flushed.

This is a prepped skull. This Bighorn had more fat on his head than most I have seen.

prepped Elk

Thanks for the info, the colonies that I have seen must be different "bugs" I think they were museum beetles? I have seen huge colonies of them, but the actual beetle was doing the eating...

Hey RD, great looking work!

By any chance to you have any more antelope samples? the angle of that pic was kinda of different. I couldnt see the skull real well .

thnx

This is the only other Antelope I have in this computer. I see what you mean on the picture. That Antelope is one of my favorites as it is the biggest one I have cleaned and was shot by a 14 year old Amish girl. Also my EX-wife left the door open to my shop and the dog took one of the horn sheaths and I found it buried in the mules shed a month later still in perfect shape. I was going to have to make a mold of the one I had and make a duplicate. Not an easy task. Very lucky to have found it especially not chewed up. Dogs are forbidden anywhere around the shop now. I know several Taxidermist that have similar incidents.

RDMartin, can you please PM me your contact info and price list?

THANKS RD!

That is a much better angle. Now you can really appreciate both the beauty of the animal and the excellent work.

Very Nice!

Here is some published info on Beetles that explains it a little more than I did.
The dermestid or carpet beetle belongs to the family Dermestidae. Dermestids feed on mainly dry-moist animal material but I have not found them to be overly picky with their dining preferences. There are many species of Dermestid beetles that live in N. America and you have probably come across them a time or two whether you know it or not. These beetles will invariably show up at a carcass, and leave behind a tell tale pile of shells which the beetles discarded as they molted. Domestic colonization of wild species has proven to be very difficult, however the species most easily colonized is Dermestes maculatus. These beetles metamorphosis; that is, egg, larval, pupal, and adult stages. The complete life cycle lasts about 45 days per generation. The adult beetles lay eggs which are too small to be seen with the naked eye. A few days later very small larvae hatch out which begin looking for their first meal. The larvae continue eating and molting 8 times
before they reach about � of an inch in length. This growing and molting period lasts about 30 days. It is the larvae that do the majority of the cleaning, however the adult will continue to eat, but they tend to have less of an appetite. When the large larvae mature
and their bellies are full they find a quite spot to pupate. As they pupate their last outer larvae skin falls off leaving them somewhat yellow in appearance. 7 days later out comes an adult beetle. Within a day or two the adult is laying 4-5
eggs a day and the whole process begins again.

PM sent.
THANKS, RD

BTT.....I would also trade skulls or skull cleaning services for reloading tools or supplies.

Randy, my skulls are being mailed to you tomorrow morning via priority mail.