When the zoology museum gets an animal, researchers measure it, dry it, and remove as much tissue as possible.

But they leave the detail work for the beetles, which crawl into cracks and crevasses where human hands cannot reach.

After a period of time in the colony - a few days for a bird to six months for a hippo - the animal is ready to come out.

The skeletons are then taken back to the museum for more cleaning, including a bath in water and sometimes hydrogen peroxide. Finally, the bones are dried and catalogued with an ID number.

Dassow said that many museums and universities have bug colonies, but UW-Madison's is one of the best, with researchers from all over the world sending their specimens here for a thorough cleaning. Many of the animals come from the Milwaukee County Zoo, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Henry Vilas Zoo.

There are other ways to clean animals. UW-Madison scientists buried a white rhinoceros at Picnic Point for 19 years to allow it to decompose through Earth's natural processes. When it was dug up in 2002, "it wasn't done yet," Dassow said. She had to finish stripping it of tissue.

That's why she prefers the thorough work of the busy beetles.

"If you're looking for a higher quality specimen to have in your collection, a beetle colony is definitely advantageous," she said.