We humans have various systems for dealing with the physical remains that are left behind upon death; a difficult but essential task. But what happens to wild animals? They do not have undertakers to perform the necessary duties involved. And why do we rarely see dead animals in the outdoor, (except on the roadside, but a few weeks later, even they are gone) \u2013Where are they going, and how? The answer is that an entire community of necrophagous organisms, including insects, show up and set about consuming a carcass. One of the largest is the Undertaker Beetle, so named because it is a uniform, silky black (save for orange tips to the antennae). It is one of the carrion beetles, and it doesn\u2019t take long to arrive on the scene; as soon as the flesh starts to give off a smell the Undertaker Beetle detect it from some distance away, even on a gentle breeze. Those funky, comb-like antennae catch a whiff and it\u2019s off in search of (not so) fresh meat. Like most other carrion-eating insects, it lays its eggs in the carcass and the emerging larvae eat their fill. The cumulative effect of thousands of creatures descending on an all-you-can-eat buffet is the fairly swift disappearance of all most of the expired animal, save for the bones and hair. It may sound a bit grim and grisly, but without these guys to clean up, our planet would be a whole lot smellier.<\/p>
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