Back in March of last year, I declared that I’m a horrible bug collector, and boy, am I. Scientists and entomologists are surely lining up around the block to smack me upside the head, or at least drop some of those Wrath of Khan earworms into my head. My dusty collection is kinda falling apart, and I’ve barely used ANY of those bugs for art in the ensuing year.
Since then, a small cadre of dermestid beetles pulled some kind of crazy David Blaine stunt and worked their way into a water-tight, carefully sealed wooden box where I kept my favorite beetle, completely devoured it, and died. Like David Blaine, it annoyed me greatly, but unlike David Blaine, even dead dermestid beetles had a more arresting personality.
Still, while walking the beaches of Sea Isle City, I was lucky enough to happen upon the beach right after an epic seagull-versus-crab fracas. And, you guessed it, nary a crab survived. Mostly because the seagulls had shivs, I bet. The crabshells were picked clean, and only the tough claws were left behind to roll in the surf. Of course, I grabbed a bucket and filled it up with the carnage. The assortment of shells that day was poor anyhow. I sent a letter of complaint to King Neptune. I also sent a backup copy to Aquaman, just in case. I don’t pretend to know the order of the universe.
The thing about collecting crab claws and then leaving them out in the sun to dry is that they stink. They stink like death. No, like death came to dinner at an Arizona seafood buffet, escorted everyone in the room into the Great Beyond, left the bodies, and came back a week later to get sick at the sight of his very own handiwork. I thought that maybe, like the lifecycle, there was a kind of stench cycle – as if the smell would get baked right out of the dessicating crab claws and eventually, they’d come right back around again to the scent of, say, an evergreen forest in which elves were diligently baking cinnamon buns. This was not the case.
I’m certainly a fan of arthropods. Exoskeletons are totally hot stuff, and that applies to my bug collection also. They appear in my paintings all of the time, and it’s good to have real-life reference materials around instead of printing pictures from Google image searches for said reference. So, how does one de-stink a crab claw?
I don’t have a good answer for that just yet, but those dermestid beetles would absolutely come in handy about now. Museums and taxidermists use their mini-farms of dermestid beetles to completely strip all meaty matter from skeletons and animal bits, since the bugs are usually more thorough and delicate than a human hand could be. Alas, like David Blaine, dermestid beetles never come around when they could be useful.
I’ve considered boiling them, though the process might change their color a bit, and the boiled crab meat might just smell much worse. I’ve considered leaving them outside and allowing nature to do its thing, but the beasts around here are pretty invasive and hungry, and I’d likely have nothing left at the end of the night. The internet hasn’t provided any kind of answer besides ‘put them on an anthill’, but darn it all, I’m fresh out. I used that last anthill to dispense with that corrupt sheriff from the next town over. That’ll show the varmint.
So, there’s a question – how do you preserve a collection that is biologically predisposed to decomposition? While preservation through photography is always a final option, I’d like to keep the actual article around. Just, you know, without the permeating odor of corpses filling my room.
Answer away!
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