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A small beetle of a family (Dermestidae ) that includes many kinds which are destructive (especially as larvae) to hides, skin, fur, wool, and other animal substances.
‘The dank cave floor swarms with flesh-eating dermestid beetles, which museums often employ to clean animal skeletons; should a maladroit bat fall into their midst, they'll reduce it to bones in minutes.’
‘Specimens were then prepared for morphometric analysis with dermestid beetles, which cleaned and disarticulated skeletal elements of the head.’
‘The mandibles were exposed to dermestid beetles, cleaned, and the coordinates of 16 landmark points were digitized for the right hemimandible.’
‘The left set of leg bones was cleaned by dermestid beetles and airdried in preparation for chemical analysis.’
‘The destruction of nests discourages infestations by dermestid beetles and other insect scavengers which could move to other household items.’
Origin
Late 19th century: from modern Latin Dermestidae (plural), from the genus name Dermestes, formed irregularly from Greek derma ‘skin’ + esthiein ‘eat’.