Dermestarium

The purpose is to expose and clean individual bones or entire skeletons for study and preservation.

Dermestaria are sometimes located in separate, bespoke buildings, as is the case at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's zoological museum.

[3] Other dermestaria are of the container or terrarium type and can be kept inside regular research and museum facilities.

The carcass is then put on a tray and placed inside the dermestarium, which has been prepared with a colony of Dermestes larvae.

The dermestarium time needed for the larvae to strip the bones clean of flesh and soft parts ranges from a few days for small animals to several years for very large animals;[5] once the bones have been stripped clean of all soft parts, the tray with the carcass is removed and placed in a freezer for a period sufficient to kill off any larvae and adult beetles that happened to tag along.