Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters My elk mount has bugs! Now what?

The pyrethrins certainly do kill insects; it's what is commonly used in camps and cabins in these parts to avoid having mosquitoes crawl out of the "woodwork" and attack in the night. (They do repel to some degree too. But watching what happens after a mosquito has gotten enough exposure is "interesting"; sure does look like a nerve toxin alright.) And I can vouch for Shell strips being effective in the long term in ridding the house of beetles, their larva, and other insect vermin. Dermestid beetles come in many forms including those which eat grain. Consequently, they can infest a pantry or other place where cereals, flour, etc may be found. A Shell strip for a month usually takes care of them. The one thing to look out for; fish are often affected by many of the same chemicals that kill insects, so take some precautions if you happen to have an aquarium in the house. We don't have trouble with our fish when using pyrethrin laced smoke found in PIC, but we don't burn it close to the tank. I would hesitate to fumigate with Buhach however where fish are present. That stuff is plain nasty.

Yep...if you "overdose", pets can suffer organophosphate poisoning from pyrethrins....screws up their nervous system something awful. I've seen the results and it is not pretty....tremors, etc...looks like they are having an epelileptic fit.

Anyway, sprayed my mounts with the pesticide yesterday and after careful observation, no pests emerged....I coated them three times and it appears I might have caught it in time. Fingers crossed. My taxidermist told me that it was plain ol moths...that's what we have down here.

Lets see what happens and thanks for your help folks.

My Brother's girlfriend (he should be marrying any year now) had a massive flea migration into her apartment a couple years ago. My Brother tried 2 bug bombs from the grocery store and the fleas survived. I told him to get a permethrin bomb from the vet. He set that off and never saw another bug in the place. I spray permethrin on my clothes for ticks. It doesn't have FDA approval for application to the skin. Experiences vary, but I don't think the stuff repels mosquitoes at all. I still wear a mesh headnet in the early season. I don't get ticks anymore though. The World epicenter for Lyme disease is Exeter, Rhode Island just down the street. I got it twice in college and was fortunate to have a bunch of medical entomologists at the University to consult with. Peter August was considered a National authority at the time. They gave me a bright yellow can with a green cap that said Permanone tick repellent. I never saw it before. They said it was from the Army. I got a case of the stuff. Now everyone makes it, and they sell it at Walmart. You still spray your clothes, but it lasts for 2 weeks. It works really well on ticks. I hate ticks. Anyway, I'd think a spritz of permethrin would do it. You've got me looking at my deer mount now. My buddy's bear rug that was hanging from the club ceiling ripped in half. We thought it got dried out. I didn't suspect bugs.

RobP
Your buddies rug may well not have bugs, a tanned hide has oil in it to preserve... that will dry out and the hide will become brittle. On normal mounts its not that much of an issue but something that folks try to make/keep flexible like a rug, when it shouldn't be flexible, will eventually fall prey to brittle and break. I keep my flat hides, IE like the moose hide over the couch back and such, ones that are not felted, I spray oil on the hair side and soak the back side every few years... WD40 works well enough for that. Light coats are best. and soak in quick...

There is a reason fur coats are supposed to be stored in cold storage in the off season, keeps bugs out and prevents drying out.... Ever see an older fur coat that wasn't stored correctly, they'll be falling apart and brittle.

Godogs
As to not having dermestids, but only moths, you can tell your taxidermist he sure better learn a few things or avoid lying... I'm not saying you have dermestids, only that I don't know of any area they are not... and Klik posted... if they are in his area of AK, we know how far north they go, and they are down here, and i"M almost in the gulf of illegal aliens....
BTW if you didn't put the mounts in bags and fumigate... you may well have been spinning your wheels big time, those bugs are often UNDER the "skin" and eat from the inside out, hence the need to bag EVERY mount and leave it treated in a sealed bag at least 24 hours.... If not, you've wasted your time and pesticide possibly.

The taxidermist in question has retired from competition, as he has won several world championships...he is a top gun in that arena. He spent a long time on the phone with me yesterday explaining the issue fully. Pyrethrins was the first word out of his mouth and common clothes moths were his diagnosis. Dermestids, according to him, was not something we see down here in South GA. His description matched up with what I was seeing. He added that the moths do not eat the hide itself, as it is treated. Their damage is to the hair follicles themselves, hence, the hair falling out. Their shop gets fumigated about once every two weeks or so, plus it has Shell No Pest strips hanging around for that very reason. They were big on the No Pest strips...I plan on hanging the no pest strip in the room this weekend and see what happens.

His shop may be fumigated, what about your house.

I won't argue with him being award winning and all, but I'll guarantee if we have the bugs here, you can get em there is what I"m saying.

I'm not arguing its moths either.... a much less issue really, and be thankful, but if you see the rice crispies shells ever, they need to be bagged and fumigated. Awards or not.

And the only thing you can treat the hide with to prevent dermestids later on, is illegal and has been for years and is a cancer causing agent.

You can treat them so that they'll resist for a bit... but it won't last more than 6 months or so.

Dan Bantley by chance?

There are no beetles in south Georgia? (I'm pretty sure they live just about everywhere on the planet except, perhaps, Antarctica - and probably some even there.) And there are many different species in the family dermistidae, which is just one of many different general types of beetles. Many of them are grain/plant eaters, but they tend to eat just about anything organic with specific preferences dependent on the species. Bagging and fuming is the best initial attack. Then using an ongoing air treating chemical of some type: Shell strip, moth balls/crystals, auto-aerosol unit might be considered. I keep a Shell strip in our cabin and in my reloading/hunting shed just to keep bugs down. It doesn't make them fall from the sky, but they can't thrive and reproduce making the larvae which are the big-time eaters stuff we don't want eaten.

Info overload, I know.

I ran one of the most successful Skull and skeleton processing business in the whole USA for almost 20 years. Custom Osteo. Did work for the coroners offices across the country, international museums, and thousands of sportsmans skulls per year.

I used Dermestid beetles and several variations cross bred to get them to be hermaphridate breeders. These are not easy to eliminate, as they can stay in a dormant state for very long periods, sometimes years when burried into wood, foam(taxidermy mannikens) or sheetrock.

It takes a proper level of temp and humidity to make them hatch, then they can hatch and burrow back in staying dormant again for some time. This species of beetle has been known to infest homes and business's to the point that they cannot be eliminated completly but just treated frequently as they show up.

The problem is that when they are visible, the eggs of a new batch have usually been layed. So when you kill them, the eggs hatch and then about 3-4 months later you see them again, but those too have laid eggs.

They are also very resistant to insectisides. We would fumigate our skeleton finish room frequently. When I did this, I put a handful into an empty mayo jar with some screen over the top secured with a few wraps of tape. Then I would fog the room. I never killed a single one in that jar with the aerosol foggers. However when I switched to the raid cannisters that you drop into a little cup of water and they smoke rather then spray.... well that killed them, not always all of them but it worked fair where the aerosols did absolutely nothing.

I'll suggest that dermestids burrowed into mounts will not be killed with the foggers, they just don't get the amount of poison that will be lethal inside a mount. Spraying the outside has minimal effect as they don't spend time outside the mounts they want the skin which is inside. They just eat their way around the skin which is usually under the fur/hair by enough that the sprayed mounts don't allow the poison to reach the skin.

One thing I would find out from the Taxidermist is if he can clean skulls with dermestids. If he has a colony of Dermestids that is likely where they came from. As far as the ideas regarding life cycle..... well the dermestids could be in mounts for years before they are noticed.

The adult beetles are all black and slighly bigger then a lady bug. the juvinles are reddish and they sometimes have a light colored tan band across the middle of the body. The beetles themselves do not eat much and do not live long. The Larve or catapillers are the eaters. When they are born 10 will fit on a pin head. before they develop into a beetle they are about the size of a macaroni noodle and covered in thin brown hair.

All they do is eat 24-7 and they can chew through almost anything with enough time. They have eaten through an igloo cooler in under a week, through the cement that holds the corners of an aquarium together in under a month. Sheet rock, plywood, any plastic, these things will eat and chew almost anything. They cannot climb up smooth metal or glass, but they can fly awkwardly when they are beetles. I have seen them burrow into the side of a cinder block as well.

If your taxidermist has Dermestid beetles that should be the most likely source. No taxidermist should also have beetles. The liability is simply to high. These kinds of businesses should be run seperately and at a great distance from one another.

These beetles are after protien with moisture, as much or more then the meat/tissue/skin etc. Putting in a dried skull resulted in over night completion. putting in a fresh frozen skull would take a week. It's very unlikely that they came into your house looking for the mounts. They would have chosen a more moist and attractive food source. It's more likely that they came in with a mount, and then settled for what was available.

These things are a threat to any home. I must have had several dozen guys over the years ask to buy beetles from me. I explained the danger and the risk and then said no! Once these things get established in a home..........wow........ it will be a freaking nightmare to get them out. I feared that the amount of poison to be certain they were dead would contaminate the house forever for my family. They will live in/ burrow into furniture, couchs, cusions, walls, carpets, taxidermy, closets, books, clothes, down coats, blankets, photos, they will consume a leather boot,

These are nothing to fool with and you should spare no expense to hire or proceed with every effort to stop their progress. It's much bigger then just the taxidermy it could be the whole house and all your furnishings at risk. Hire somebody to do this right now, it's like a cancer in your home.

JJ, thanks, really informative post!
Jeff

Jim: Is there any validity to the notion that if your mounts were done in Africa, their harsh chemicals we no longer use here in the US serve as a deterrent? jorge

Certainly a deterent, but when starving they will eat whatever they have available. These things don't prefer books, and wood. But they will chew right through it. I saw some magazines with holes bored through them over night. They are not paper beetles, but they will eat or chew through whatever they have available.

I do believe that the African trophies have been saturated in horrible deadly stuff that we would never be able to use here. Much like the chemicals they use in tanning. They have no equal agency to the EPA as we do here.

These things are not clever enough to know when to quit. They will eat poisioned leather and die, but the damage is done, then the hatch occurs and the next batch takes over eating and dying again. It just keeps repeating until destruction and failure of the mount.

I wish I still had my Custom Osteo website up for this business. I had time lapse photography of a colony eating the flesh from a Grizzly skull in one day. Put in Frozen and finshed in under 24 hours. Not a spec of flesh on the skull, just spotless cleaned bone.

I suggest shooting another big ass elk!

Steelhead has the best advice...and I am taking that advice the first week in October. Thanks again for everybody's suggestions...sincerely appreciated!

JJ, do you wake up in a sweat, nights- having nightmares about being eaten to a skeleton while asleep? You're certainly not soft-soaping dermestids!

When we were still allowed arsenic in tans it did a really decent job.

Now in our tanning agents and baths you can't do much of anything, in fact there isn't much of anything stronger than moth ball type of substance...

A good friend of mine who now has the largest business in this area had them in his home. They were simply not possible to remove. His business was miles from his home. However he came home with one in a jacket, then some time later another in his hair, or shirt, on his sock, over the years several were unknowingly transferred to the house where they eventually established a breeding population. I saw them in the house, I watched one fly across the dining room. It was simply not possible to eliminate them 100%.

If your a taxidermist and consider getting beetles to do the european part of the work, think again. If your having the skulls done by anyone with beetles and your trophy is returned, be careful and quarantine that trophy for a little bit before you put it in the house.

We had a seperate building to do finish work on all the skeletons and skulls. Prior to entering that room all skulls were disinfected and every living thing "nuked" before it was allowed in. That room was sealed tight from all insects. It was fumigated every month needed or not and we never saw a single bug in there of any type, not just no beetles, but no flys, spiders, NOTHING.

The finished work was in there for about a month. We kept all of them on a special table which would show the typical saw dust looking droppings if there were any. This business did not always run this way, However I was able to learn these procedures by having problems before. Each time I had something go wrong, the process changed to correct it. After about 10 years I think I had it mostly figured out. But there were lots of issues along the way.

If somebody thinks they are going to have a little aquarium in the basement to "play around" with these things and experiment and clean a few skulls...... well this is a huge danger to infestation. These are not normal insects that die or react to poison, and they don't flutter around in the open like a moth. They don't buzz around like a fly. They are strongly active after dark, and burrow into everything. They are much like a cockroach. However they can cause way more structural and property damage then any roach can.

I am a taxidermist, and it sounds like plain old dermestids to me. There must be different species of dermestids, because the ones you get in mounts aren't the large ones like JJ spoke about. They are small black beetles, and they can fly. They lay their eggs, then the larvae eats the mount. You get frass (sawdust looking droppings) coming out of the mount where they feed.

I have had them show up in European mounts (skulls) years after they were boiled and bleached. It only takes a tiny bit of meat for them to snack on, and Europeans usually have some meat left in the sinus area. That is one main reason I hate skull mounts, they can be a catalyst for your whole trophy room getting destroyed. Another place bugs like to start is under the sheaths of horned animals like antelope and sheep that weren't cleaned properly.

Usually dermestids don't eat tanned leather. I am wondering if there is some residual meat left behind on the skull cap area?

Here are pics from a mount I tore apart last summer. I had it mounted by another taxi in 1991. I never knew it had bugs until I tore it apart. And none of my other mounts ever got bugs. I also found that the leather itself was not touched. They simply burrowed in under the mache that covers the skull, and started snacking.

The yellow debris on the piece of wood, and right next to it, are the shells from the larvae.


Note the uncleaned skull cap! This is what attracted the beetles.

More membrane under the skull that wasn't cleaned:

Dang! My elk doesn't look like that! I sprayed pyrethrins over every mount in the house, three times, and then fumigated the house Friday. Will do again today. Honestly, I have not had any sign of them after the first spray. Still crossing my fingers, so far, so good. Here is a pic of him....358 2/8"

Good chance they are coming from your birds...Birds are notorious for attracting beetles since they aren't tanned.

Ever find any sawdust looking stuff on your couch?

PS, your mount may look like my pics on the inside. Mine looked normal too. Only reason I tore it apart is because the mount sucked, so I redid it. Awesome bull by the way!