Carrion – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

February 25, 2021

Red kites and ravens swooped through Elizabethan London – and helped keep the city clean

Lee Raye, The Open University

Plague-wary Londoners tolerated mischievous red kites and ravens for their services to the city’s sanitation.

The process of turning a newly dead animal into a bony skeleton relies on an explosion of life that ushers in decomposition. (Shutterstock)

October 28, 2020

Life after death: How insects rise from the dead and transform corpses into skeletons

Paul Manning, Dalhousie University

Nutrients and energy contained within dead animals are repurposed and repackaged into living, breathing insects.

To understand the effects of a big die-off, researchers set up experiments with wild boar carcasses. Brandon Barton, Mississippi State University

January 10, 2020

Rotting feral pig carcasses teach scientists what happens when tons of animals die all at once, as in Australia’s bushfires

Brandon Barton, Mississippi State University and Abby Jones, Mississippi State University

Death is a natural part of ecosystems. But it’s unusual for a large number of animals to all die at once. Researchers are investigating how a mass mortality event affects what’s left afterwards.

Healthy Tasmanian devil populations have cornered the market on carrion. Menna Elizabeth Jones

November 28, 2018

Tassie devils’ decline has left a feast of carrion for feral cats

Calum Cunningham, University of Tasmania; Christopher Johnson, University of Tasmania; Menna Elizabeth Jones, University of Tasmania, and Tracey Hollings, The University of Melbourne

A new study involving leaving animal carcasses strewn across Tasmania shows that in places where devils have dwindled, other scavengers are stepping up to fill the gap, with nasty knock-on effects.

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