Where ‘how greasy a human is’ is part of the job

The process isn’t for the squeamish. Once a set of bones arrives at the company, workers carve off as much tissue as they can by hand. Then the dermestid beetles do the rest. Villemarette gladly removes one tank in which the bugs are feasting on tissue that remains on the skulls of two alligators, two dogs, a grizzly bear and a gazelle, picking up one of the skulls to offer an onlooker a better view of the process.

Flies can be a problem around the skulls, as a fly strip loaded down with the dead pests attests. Biohazard signs are numerous, as skulls in various states of preparation lie scattered on the floor.

Naturally, the question arises about the facility’s unique aroma.

“I’ve been waist-deep in a dead hippopotamus, and I’d rather do that than change diapers,” Humphries said. “You always notice (the smell), but you do get used to it.”

As if to offer proof, one of Villemarette’s sons casually walks by the rendering tables, munching on a bag of chips and drinking a soda.

Villemarette said eating chips, in a roundabout way, presents a problem when a human skeleton is being processed. The beetles don’t like to eat human tissue, he said, because of the volume of grease in human bones and meat.

“It’s just nasty,” he said. “We will clean human (bones), but we’d just as soon not. There’s kind of an ‘ick’ factor, you know? It’s just not quite the same. The ‘ick’ factor on dismembering a human body and putting the meat into a biohazardous bucket to be rendered, and the oils that drip off onto that floor,” he said, seemingly not wanting to finish the thought. “Some people would say that I am exaggerating when I say how greasy a human is. I am not exaggerating. It is nasty.”

Even as his company cranks out the skulls and skeletons, Villemarette works on other projects. He’s in the process of writing a book that will feature the skeletons of the 442 mammals indigenous to North America. He also hopes to open the Museum of Osteology next year in south Oklahoma City that will include skeletons of mammals both common and exotic, such as giraffes, whales, elephants and the endangered black-footed ferret.

He can’t foresee a day when he’d want to do anything else.

“I’m still having fun,” Villemarette said. “I love what I do.”

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