1/28/2024 0 Comments The long dark carcass decayCarrion beetles and soil are similar in the way they sit at this interface between the living and the dead. But I see soil very differently: as a very thin, breathing skin of the planet, full of myriad different, beautiful forms of invisible life – an ecosystem that enables life to reform from death. Most people, including fellow biologists, basically see soil as a place of death – full of dead plants and animals, which eventually decompose into pieces. Over the next few months my feelings changed. I confess the thought of dead corpses stuffed with creepy crawlies was initially repellent to me (especially just after lunch) but back then I really didn’t know much about the incredible biology of these beetles. The carrion beetles (also known as burying beetles or sexton beetles), which Sheena researches, are masters of death: they breed in the dead carcass of a mouse or a bird and, together with their larval brood, reduce it to bones and skin in a very short time. I had just finished lunch at a “research away day” when I got caught up in a conversation about carrion beetles with a new colleague of mine, Sheena Cotter. It was Halloween and the discussion had inevitably turned to death – and flesh-eating zombies.
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