Sexton Beetles
Aaahh! Zombie Mouse!
OK, so on Wednesday, June 13[1], there was some stuff I had to haul out of the basement. The basement has one of those outdoor cellar entrances, with a slanting hatchway covering a set of concrete steps leading down. Since this was the best way to haul out bulky things, I opened up the lid . . . and saw . . . a dead mouse laying on the stairs [2]. Ok, kind of nasty, but not too bad, except . . . then . . . it started to move. Not just a little motion, it hopped up, rolled over, and fell down to the next step! Gah!
And then, the cause became obvious. These two large [3] beetles disengaged themselves from the corpse and scurried off.