Day 3
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Deer carcass condition on 10/06/2002.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PICTURES

Click on any image below to see it larger.

Whole body covered with bluebottle fly larvae, except for the head and the ends of the legs. Adult flies were not present when these pictures were taken, presumably because it was so cold. (Plenty adult flies were around later in the day).

These hairy rove beetles showed up today. Also, notice the blowflies either dead or paralyzed hanging to the sticks to the top right. This is because it is so cold this morn. It's the first cool day since the experiment began.

Closeup of one of the new neighbors (a hairy rove beetle).

In this one you can see a (or possibly two) hairy rove beetle munching on a bluebottle larva.

Click to see the close-up. The point is the condensation cloud above the pit.

The tongue is really hanging out today!

All in all, the skull is really in good shape. I wonder if the torso is being collonated so quickly only because I opened it up and made it more accessible.


Good closeup showing the size of the bluebottle fly larvae.

The remaining pictures are poor quality pics of bluebottle flies that I took as samples. I also took some excellent hairy rove beetles, but the photographer failed to get any descent pictures of them.
DETAILS 54 degrees, 82% humidity. (I can see my breath if I make it hot). The larvae must really be working, because there is a cloud of condensation above the carcass. (This paragraph was written when I took the pics).

The carcass, other than the head, is covered with larvae about 1 cm. long. About 20 hairy rove beetles about 2 cm. long showed up in the morning. Hairy rove beetles eat fly larvae. Later in the day (when it was warmer), there were many more hairy rove beetles (perhaps a hundred).

I've never had a very sensitive nose, but I'm still surprised how little the odor bothers me. It definitely smells bad from 30 feet away, yet I often realize when I'm in the middle of some task (like trying to picture of something particularly interesting), that I've completely forgotten about the smell. Later in the day my Mom checked it out. She held her nose the whole time.

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