7/3/19 – Today was a very important day. As soon as I was finished breakfast, I made my way up to Headquarters. Cristina greeted me, discussed the experiment set up briefly, and sent me on my merry way for some data collection. I opened the freezer, and right between a package of batteries and some Otter Pops were my test subjects: Squirrel A and Squirrel B. These two rodents would help me determine whether or not insects played a role in ‘speeding up’ the decomposition process.
Squirrel A
Squirrel B
As you can tell, Squirrel B is twice the size of Squirrel A (and weighs twice as much too!) which will be a major variable in this experiment. While this is not desirable, these were the only animals on hand that were in the same family – Let’s not shame B for his eating habits.
As soon as I got the weight of A and B, Cristina, Susan and I made our way to the test site, a cement patch just below a hill next to the Lizard cabin – they’re away right now, so I hope the placement is faraway enough to were they don’t smell nature taking its course. I wouldn’t wish that scent onto my worst enemy.
Squirrel A and B on the test site. A will be isolated from insects, while B will be exposed to them.
After taking the humidity, temperature, and wind speed (all factors very important to the decomposition process), I noticed a fly on B’s face. B had only been out for about 10 minutes, and was still a bit frozen from the freezer.
This isn’t surprising though. Within 90 seconds of someone or some animal dying, flies will appear. This fly probably didn’t find B satisfactory enough, as no eggs had been laid. Visibly.
I checked on the corpses about an hour later, but no insects were on B (not even flies, which I blame on the unpredictable wind speeds), and neither of them showed any visible signs of decomposing quite yet. But no matter- I had to pin my beetles!
Ben, part time insect enthusiast and full time working man, picked me up from my house and drove me to HQ. He taught me 13 out of the 24 orders of insects, and how to identify one from each order we went over. It’s quite amazing how many insects can belong in the same family but look wildly different from each other. This is most observable in the order Hemiptera, or “True Bug” class (calling all insects ‘bugs,’ while wildly easier and faster, is not correct) which ranges from Cicadas to Stink Bugs to Ambush Bugs (look up a picture of these guys when you get the chance). After this lesson, Ben told me to get my beetles so we can pin them and then identify them. I walked over to the freezer and grabbed the vial, setting them on the table. As soon as Ben gave me the OK to open the vial (which still smelled like death, mind you) I noticed something. My BEETLES WERE ALIVE! Those little buggers…
I accidentally left them in the fridge instead of the freezer over night. My bad.
After correcting my mistake and hoping I didn’t collect super beetles that would survive being frozen, Ben was happy (?) to lend me some insects from his own collection for me to pin.
Beetle, carpenter bee, kissing bug (named so because they prefer to bite the mouth), cricket
He also had a few ants from his collection for me to identify using a dichotomous key
as well as a microscope to make things easier
the ant from the microscope
After this awesome experience, Ben dropped me off at the house. By this time, I had to go check on the squirrels. And what do you know…
After only 4 hours after the last check up, B already has ants on the ‘entry areas’ of his body: the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and anus, sure signs of early-on set decomposition. As for A, there were still no blatant signs.
I look forward to what tomorrow has to bring!
P.S.
As for my maggot and grub roomies…
They’re enjoying a healthy meal of two-day-old-salmon and bacon fat, and seem to be growing bigger after every time I check on them
Incredible experiement! I’m learning so much just reading your blog! Quite interesting!
Your infusion of comedy throughout cracks me up and makes it digestible ; )