Unlike primates, which change behavior and appearance to advertise when they are in heat and ovulating, burying beetles broadcast the opposite information. As soon as beetle eggs metamorphose into vulnerable larvae, the mother releases a hormone that blocks her egg production and, at the same time, produces the buzz-kill pheromone.

Unlike burying beetles, most insects lay eggs and move on. For the few that take care of offspring, including honey bees and ants, females do the parenting.

“Burying beetles are supercool,” said Marlene Zuk, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota. “I applaud the researchers. We could just say that organisms do what they do and sometimes there’s parental care and sometimes not. But how do you make such an incredibly unusual behavior happen when it does? This closes the loop.”

For their research, Dr. Steiger and her team ventured into the forest by the university and left mouse carcasses — “You can just order them, frozen, on the Internet,” she explained — to attract the beetles.

Drawn by the smell of a carcass, burying beetles strip it of fur, roll it up, coat it with a protective secretion (somewhat akin to antibacterial liquid) and bury it. Then they use it for food and as a breeding chamber.

Because researchers did not know the age of the forest burying beetles, they took them to the lab to breed a fresh first generation. Researchers paired off males and females, provided them with peat and carrion, and began observations.