# How do you clean a hummingbird skeleton?  Like this!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-clean-a-hummingbird-skeleton-like-this/273847>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 9, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-clean-a-hummingbird-skeleton-like-this/273847 "2004-11-09T16:05:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-clean-a-hummingbird-skeleton-like-this/273847/1 "2004-11-09T16:05:19Z")

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[Oak Ridge teacher forms business around flesh-eating beetles, skulls](http://tennessean.com/local/archives/04/11/61208880.shtml?Element_ID=61208880)

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> Hitchcock’s skull-cleaning shop is in Oak Ridge in what used to be a hairdressing salon. He started out with 25 dermestid beetles, and today he has colonies of several thousand.
> 
> The beetles are kept inside two 20-by-22-foot floor freezers where the temperature remains about 90 degrees. Once the beetles have done their job, Hitchcock de-greases the skulls with white gasoline and finally whitens them by soaking them in an oxidation agent.
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> Most of his skulls come from hunters, trappers and taxidermists. On a recent visit to his shop, Hitchcock showed his guests a complete hummingbird skeleton prepared by his biology students. The skull was as thin as an eggshell, and the entire skeleton easily fit in the palm of his hand.
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> ‘‘See that thing that looks like a hair?’’ Hitchcock said. ‘‘That’s the tongue.’’
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> Hitchcock took out a skunk skull that had been in the floor freezer for a week. The adult beetles crawled through the eye sockets while the larvae flossed between the skunk’s needle-sharp teeth. The beetles also were chomping on skulls belonging to chipmunks, squirrels and whitetailed deer.
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> Hitchcock said cleaning skulls gives him rare insight into mammal anatomy.
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> ‘‘To me it’s fun, almost a Zen thing,’’ he said. '‘You learn how everything connects, right down to the bare essentials of bone and tissue.’