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Greetings,
We have a (currently small) problem with red-legged ham
beetles in our mammal collection and would like
suggestions on how best to eliminate them. While moving
the contents of 2 cases of boxed wolf skeletons from one
case to another we discovered several live adult
red-legged ham beetles in a few of the boxes. Closer
inspection of the contents of all boxes revealed a few
additional beetles, as well as some on the sticky traps
that were in the bottom of each case. We bagged and froze
all boxes from the 2 original infested cases and vacuumed
the 4 (emptied) cases with a HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner.
A few days later while inspecting the empty cases we
discovered 2 additional red-legged ham beetles on sticky
traps in 2 of the cases. At this point we decided to
inspect all sticky traps inside museum cases in the room
(400 cases) and detected 7 additional cases that contained
the beetle. The museum cases are on compactors and we have
since vacuumed the floor of the entire collection room,
including the rails, to eliminate any beetles on the move.
What can we do to eliminate the beetles, and to ensure
that the museum case is bug-free after freezing the
contents? We can bag and freeze the contents of all
infested cases but its counterproductive to return them
to a case that may still contain red-legged ham beetles.
Being unable to freeze the case itself, we have resorted
to vacuuming the inside. Is there a better method?
We believe we know the source of the problem and have
since instituted measures to prevent a reoccurrence. But
for now we need to deal with the buggy hand weve been
dealt.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Cindy
Cindy Ramotnik
U.S. Geological Survey
Museum of Southwestern Biology
Department of Biology
MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505-277-5369
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