October 31, 2007
Flesh eating beetles storm UM campus
Story by Paulie Pabst
Weekly World Kaimin
A genetically enhanced colony of flesh-eating beetles escaped from the workshop of a Lolo taxidermist and were last seen headed for the University of Montana campus.
“They’re loose, they’re hungry and they’re mad,” said Bud Ballantine owner and manager of Bud Ballantine’s Bare Bones Trophy Emporium.
Museums and taxidermists regularly use the so-called dermestid beetles to clean animal skulls and bones so that they can be used as trophy mounts and western style decor.
Under normal conditions a box full of dermestid larvae can completely clean a deer skull of its flesh in a day and a half.
Ballantine several years ago began trying to produce more potent and voracious dermestid beetles, so he could clean skulls and bones more quickly and thereby realize greater profits.
“You might say things got a little out of hand,” said Ballantine, noting that, during one experiment several months ago, the superbreed of beetle larvae he produced managed to remove all the flesh off his right hand while he was taking a 30-minute nap.
“If I hadn’t woked up, they woulda gnawed my whole arm off,” he said.
The beetles are only dangerous until they reach the adult stage, he noted. As adults they stop consuming flesh and focus on reproducing.
Ballantine said approximately 25,000 beetles escaped from his workshop in Lolo, south of Missoula, earlier this week.
Subsequent reports placed the angry hordes of beetles at Wal-Mart, then a Brooks Street casino and, later yet, outside a pizza shop less than one-fourth mile from the 13,000-student campus.
“Them beetles have a preference for younger flesh,” Ballantine said, adding that he wasn’t surprised they were heading for the university.
A campus police spokesman said precautions were being taken even though there were no confirmed reports that the beetles had reached campus.
“Our early warning system is in place, and we feel certain that word will eventually reach our 13,000 students … What’s that? Oh, make that 12,200 students … What? Wait a minute...”
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This year, Halloween marks not only that oh-so-favorite time of year when Goth becomes normal and adults scare the bejeezes out of small children guilt-free, but the near two-month anniversary of the death of a media legend. For those of you who haven’t been paying much attention in the Albertson’s checkout line, America’s beloved Weekly World News ceased publishing after its last issue on Aug. 27. So, to celebrate the legacy of a 28-year-old tabloid, the Montana Kaimin has put together the sensational … the earth shaking … the memorial Weekly World Kaimin. Please bear in mind, as you browse these stories and photos during that snorey class in Urey Lecture Hall, that everything printed in the Weekly World Kaimin is fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. The advertisements are real, but the news … well, we wish the news were real. Thank you.
