Insects on the head of a Hare....

Last Sunday a country walk in Norfolk turned up a very interesting find...

There was an old dead Hare in a ditch beneath some bushes, so being a keen skull collector  went down to take a look. Most of the flesh had already been eaten, and what was left was very dry and there was no smell, so unfortunately it was far too late for any of the Sexton Beetles, but I did find one adult Oiceoptoma thoracicum, which was great as I had never seen this species before.

Oiceoptoma thoracicum - pinned and drying out, 

the pins around it are to hold things in place.

Once I had a closer look at the skull and started the cleaning up process, I found lots of small beetle larvae. These are all Silphinae larvae, but I will have to wait for some to mature and develop into adult beetles before I can confirm the species. The wider looking larvae in the middle  is a young Oiceoptoma thoracicum. I have kept the larvae in a tub with substrate and food, so will hopefully have adult beetles soon...

For those of you also interested in the Hare skull itself, it's almost fully clean, so will post about it when there is progress, this is what it looked like after initial cleaning: