Expert: Walter Hintz - 3/6/2004

Question
Dear Mr. Hintz,
  My name is Ivin DeLane Huffman and I am a fiction writer.  I am considering writing a book about an insect that is capable of eating living human flesh.  I wish to losely base the insects off the armored beetles written about in the Book of Revelations in the Bible.  Anyway, I would like to find an insect, preferably a beetle, that I can use as a reference point to create my fictional insect off of.
  I have heard of flesh eating beetles, of course, and read where they are used by museums to pick animal bones clean so they can be properly displayed.  Is possibility for these same beetles to eat living tissue, I mean if the circumstances were right.  Or do they just eat dead flesh?
  You're answers will be very much appreciated.
                        Thank you for your time,
                             Ivin DeLane Huffman  

Answer
Hi Ivin
 The beetles used in preparing are Dermestid beetles.  They are scavengers and will not feed on living tissues.
Stories of flesh eating insects are fictional, unless you consider ectoparasites that take blood meals(fleas and mosquitos). Blood is certainly living tissue.
 There is a fly called the Botfly that lays eggs under the skin of mammals.  The maggot feeds on tissues after hatching and falls out and pupates.  You might consider a fictional insect like this fly attacking a victim in huge numbers and the victim swollen with bot fly maggots.  Such an account would be worthy of Stephen King.
 If you search the topic at Google you will see an account of a termites eating people but I don't believe it.  The physiology of the termite would preclude it.
 Let me know if I can help you more