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alaskan beetle
Hi,
Found your cool site and wondered if you could identify this beetle. We found a couple of them and several larvae in a pile of dog poop behind our home in Anchorage. It seemed to be an inch long and about .5 inch wide. My wife said it opened up it its wings but did not fly. Its antennae are really wild looking. It dug itself into the grass/ground quickly after turning it loose. Neither of us has ever seen one and both have lived in Alaska all our lives. Thanks,
Mike & Heather

Hi Mike and Heather,
You have a species of Burying Beetle. These beetles eat carrion. I have read that a pair can bury a small mouse in a few hours. A hole is dug under the corpse which is eventually buried. Then eggs are laid on the dead critter which serves as food for the growing larvae. We were uncertain as to the exact species, and Eric Eaton has informed us that certain identification would be time consuming but it belongs to the Genus Nicrophorus.

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