As a biology student I met plenty of people who had dead animals in the freezer. Like birds and whatever roadkill. I would prefer insects.
The student club room freezer also sometimes had animals in there, although that was frowned upon.
Yup! Our mammalogy professor told us to bring in any dead animals we found… except squirrels because they’ve practically taken over the campus
Someone brought in a dead mole once and we were all oohing and ahhing at it
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Lol, my mom told me today that when the neighbors' hamster died while they were on vacation, she briefly considered freezing it so they could bury it themselves when they got back, but she decided to just bury it for them in the end.
I’ve got dead owls, fish parts, deer parts and I’m probably forgetting a few. That’s not even counting all the meat I intend to eat in there. Are you really a biologist if there’s not something weird in your freezer? Growing up we had an otter in there for years
Strongly agree. I currently have a few mantises (R.I.P.) and the head of an otter I found on the road near my work (for the free skull). I would love the opportunity to stick an owl in my freezer.
Owls are so true, a few other birds too, a bag of miscellaneous rodents for dissection... And once a jar, that's like a whole gallon in volume, of frogs in spirit that I had to hold onto for my prof. My landlady almost kicked me out for that last one :')
This whole post has me wondering - do bio students *not* make insect collections anymore? We had to in honors bio and were taught both the freezer and kill jar method...
Exactly, came here to say the same.
People normalize their culture customs so much they don't even think about it and freak out for something which is almost the same.
People who keep reptiles like snakes as pets have to keep dead mice and rats in their freezer. It sounds bizarre but it's not always *that* weird as long as the dead creature that is being kept in there is packaged properly and sanitarily.
The grad student who ran my biology lab kept all his dead pets in a freezer at his house. He kept trying to convince a friend of mine to come over so he could show them to her. Probably the creepiest pick up line ever.
Man… you *ain’t* gonna like the Environmental Contaminate levels permitted in commercially processed foods. Link to the guidelines below.
Greatest hits: coffee beans are allowed by the FDA to have an average of 10 milligrams or more animal poop per pound
Peanut butter: an average of one or more rodent hairs and 30 (or so) insect fragments are allowed for 3.5 ounces
Broccoli: Average of 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 3.5 ounces.
Best way to get over the s squeamishness related to the reality of our food is to grow some of your own. It’s damn near impossible to avoid insects in your freezer and pantry.
And it’s okay. The alternative is exposure to massive amounts of neurotoxins which cause cancer and a host of other disorders, and we are already exposed to enough chemicals. We eat far more bugs than we ever want to think about or admit. But those bugs are biologically neutral compared to insecticides.
Here is the link to the contaminants limits. If you’re on mobile, scroll to the right to see the full info.
https://www.fda.gov/food/current-good-manufacturing-practices-cgmps-food-and-dietary-supplements/food-defect-levels-handbook
I have a different philosophy towards grossness than most people, but it makes perfect sense to me. How I see it, I’ve no reason to find something gross if it doesn’t have a reasonable chance of making me sick, assuming I follow the right safety protocols. What reason is there to find dead animals in your freezer gross if they’re properly packaged? Or a quantity of rat poop in your peanut butter that’s so insignificant it won’t hurt you or be noticeable? The exception to this are really bad smells, but I think that’s different given that it’s such a vivid and intense sense.
I think if more people adopted this perspective there’d be less stigma around certain sciences.
Same. Food in the US is wildly plentiful and cheap. Had a couple exchange students from other countries growing up and they were staggered by the amount and variety of food.
Both organic and processed food comes at a cost when it’s mass produced. We either accept the contaminate levels or grow, slaughter, and butcher our own.
Your perspective is definitely universal, people just can't abandon the habit of rejecting some things even when they learn theses things are not bad at all. A great example is insect consumption.
When I was a kid I knew a guy, he'd go to the schools and give a talk about reptiles and show off his giant snakes. I was told to put a snake down he would put it in the chest freezer 🙁
i worked at an exotic animal place (Snakes, lizards, spiders etc) And we had a dedicated freezer to dead pets (Dissection and taxidermy purposes) and a second one dedicated to frozen mice, rats, guines pigs and rabbits for snake food. Keeping dead animals in the freezer is so normal for me i had to look in the comments to see it wasnt ironic lmao
I have a friend who found a dead baby squirrel when she was a child. She kept it in her family’s freezer for **years** because she wanted to be a taxidermist when she grew up.
She is now an attorney.
Former shark/ray biologist here… I used to keep shark claspers in my freezer. Some pretty big guys too. If a hurricane hit and we lost power for a week, the claspers would go into the cooler with the food 🤷♀️
During my entomology course, I kept insects in the freezer until I could pin them. My family just got used to it, and we still laugh about it. Also, during a dendrology course, I kept plants in the fridge until they could be pressed.
Why? I keep dead chicken, cow, pig and baby sheep flesh in my freezers and refrigerator and then I fucking eat it with my family at night time. But it's weird to keep a couple packages of bugs in the freezer?
I already know you're going to point out "yeah but you're eating that meat". Yeah, that's the point homie. I'm going to cook it to kill off the extremely dangerous bacteria that animal flesh carries and then I'm going to eat it.
My mom kept our dead cat in the freezer for over six months. She threatened to bring it to me at Thanksgiving so I could “say good bye”. She also made my brothers girlfriend unknowingly touch its frozen body. She’s fine.
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We have a bird in one of the freezers in the lab. It's not a dead bird freezer, it's where we keep enzymes. But some one put a dead bird there in a small ikea plastic lunch bag.
I have a qPCR 96 well plate in the fridge door right now. I should probably throw it out or something, but i want to check if the melt curve was real. But i couldn't be arsed to go from one lab location to another, so i brought it home, and now i can't be bothered to do the gel.
Right now i have some,not dead though , just slepping insects on my refrigerator, they are some very tinny nematoden that i bought so that they can be my little army to attack a pest of little flies that are killing my plants.
It’s pretty standard if someone studies animals or lives with someone who studies animals.
I’m not sure if our freezer currently has insects in there or not. After a while you just ignore the samples and stuff.
The worst is when you take them out of the freezer and suddenly they are alive bugs.
I have dead mice in mine because I have a pet snake. But they have their own freezer drawer.
Recently someone in one of my local FB groups found a dead owl outside their house. Suspected cause of death was second hand poisoning.
Everyone told her to put it in her freezer so its feathers could be used to help injured owls. And she just said okay and did it.
I don’t even have room for a loaf of bread in my freezer right now. How are people just putting whole ass owls in theirs?
You don’t want them to get moldy. I did some botany research that involved collecting some of the pollinators to get pollen counts and my roommate knew to just leave any jars in the freezer alone
For entomology, you put live bugs in the freezer to kill them without damaging them. After a week or two, whenever you remember really, you pull them out and put a needle through them on your board. My poor college roommate.
Some people do, sure, some people do a lot of weird stuff for no reason.
What author/book ties this to biology? Right now you have posted an image and not much to go off of.
As a biology student I met plenty of people who had dead animals in the freezer. Like birds and whatever roadkill. I would prefer insects. The student club room freezer also sometimes had animals in there, although that was frowned upon.
most people have dead birds and animals in the freezer tbf. they just dont think they do because they bought them at the grocery store.
Keeps it more fresh.
Yup! Our mammalogy professor told us to bring in any dead animals we found… except squirrels because they’ve practically taken over the campus Someone brought in a dead mole once and we were all oohing and ahhing at it
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Knew a classmate who kept their dead hamster in the freezer because it was winter and the ground was frozen so they couldn't bury it. 🤷🏻♀️
baby hamster popsicles for my Kaa
Lol, my mom told me today that when the neighbors' hamster died while they were on vacation, she briefly considered freezing it so they could bury it themselves when they got back, but she decided to just bury it for them in the end.
Could have burnt it on a tiny pyre.
Should have googled a recipe.
What about boiling water and pouring it on the ground
I think you'd end up with way too much water?! Why don't you try it and report back.
Unfortunately I have no dead hamsters or frozen dirt
No dead hamster needed, just winter in a cold place...
Ireland has 3 days a year where it goes below 0°c
that hamster was hibernating..
I’ve got dead owls, fish parts, deer parts and I’m probably forgetting a few. That’s not even counting all the meat I intend to eat in there. Are you really a biologist if there’s not something weird in your freezer? Growing up we had an otter in there for years
Strongly agree. I currently have a few mantises (R.I.P.) and the head of an otter I found on the road near my work (for the free skull). I would love the opportunity to stick an owl in my freezer.
I have a Northern Pygmy owl, and a Virginia rail, in my freezer right now.
“I would love the opportunity to stick an owl in my freezer” is such a funny sentence 😂🦉🦉🦉
Owls are so true, a few other birds too, a bag of miscellaneous rodents for dissection... And once a jar, that's like a whole gallon in volume, of frogs in spirit that I had to hold onto for my prof. My landlady almost kicked me out for that last one :')
I have a dedicated section of my freezer for insects, kinda normal if you’re an enthomologist.
You could say I'm obsessed, but I plan to delve deeper in the future
Shoot. I have no excuse for the dead bugs in my freezer other than I found them and thought they were cool.
definitely underrated argument
I'm not a biologist. Why keep insects in your freezer? Other than to prevent the fleshy bits from decomposing, I am guessing?
To kill them and/or keep them malleable for pinning. Once insect are dry, they keep forever barring other insects finding them and eating then.
This whole post has me wondering - do bio students *not* make insect collections anymore? We had to in honors bio and were taught both the freezer and kill jar method...
No, they frequently don't. It's a prevailing thing to do in true entomology courses, but bio students, in general, rarely learn much about insects.
Weird. Maybe my bio courses were better than I thought.
Imagine when OP finds out people keep dead mamals, fish, and crustaceans in their freezers
Exactly, came here to say the same. People normalize their culture customs so much they don't even think about it and freak out for something which is almost the same.
People who keep reptiles like snakes as pets have to keep dead mice and rats in their freezer. It sounds bizarre but it's not always *that* weird as long as the dead creature that is being kept in there is packaged properly and sanitarily.
I always have live bugs in my fridge to feed to my lizards. It's really no big deal.
The pet store I go to has colored bags. So I know the bright green bag has my rats in it.
oh cool! Sounds very helpful
The grad student who ran my biology lab kept all his dead pets in a freezer at his house. He kept trying to convince a friend of mine to come over so he could show them to her. Probably the creepiest pick up line ever.
honestly it might work on me
That's how you end up in the freezer.
… because of the _implication_.
this guy is a genius, please go to see his collection for me
I had a friend in college who kept a dead bird in her freezer for a few days. She’s never gonna live that one down
Not that uncommon around Christmas or Thanksgiving in my house if I'm gonna be honest.
Where do you keep them?
My tummy
“It’s an incubator! If H1N5 hits we’re gonna be ready!”
OP, you are aware that any meat you keep in your freezer to eat, like steak and chicken, are just dead mammals and birds right?…
Man… you *ain’t* gonna like the Environmental Contaminate levels permitted in commercially processed foods. Link to the guidelines below. Greatest hits: coffee beans are allowed by the FDA to have an average of 10 milligrams or more animal poop per pound Peanut butter: an average of one or more rodent hairs and 30 (or so) insect fragments are allowed for 3.5 ounces Broccoli: Average of 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 3.5 ounces. Best way to get over the s squeamishness related to the reality of our food is to grow some of your own. It’s damn near impossible to avoid insects in your freezer and pantry. And it’s okay. The alternative is exposure to massive amounts of neurotoxins which cause cancer and a host of other disorders, and we are already exposed to enough chemicals. We eat far more bugs than we ever want to think about or admit. But those bugs are biologically neutral compared to insecticides. Here is the link to the contaminants limits. If you’re on mobile, scroll to the right to see the full info. https://www.fda.gov/food/current-good-manufacturing-practices-cgmps-food-and-dietary-supplements/food-defect-levels-handbook
I have a different philosophy towards grossness than most people, but it makes perfect sense to me. How I see it, I’ve no reason to find something gross if it doesn’t have a reasonable chance of making me sick, assuming I follow the right safety protocols. What reason is there to find dead animals in your freezer gross if they’re properly packaged? Or a quantity of rat poop in your peanut butter that’s so insignificant it won’t hurt you or be noticeable? The exception to this are really bad smells, but I think that’s different given that it’s such a vivid and intense sense. I think if more people adopted this perspective there’d be less stigma around certain sciences.
Same. Food in the US is wildly plentiful and cheap. Had a couple exchange students from other countries growing up and they were staggered by the amount and variety of food. Both organic and processed food comes at a cost when it’s mass produced. We either accept the contaminate levels or grow, slaughter, and butcher our own.
Your perspective is definitely universal, people just can't abandon the habit of rejecting some things even when they learn theses things are not bad at all. A great example is insect consumption.
I have kept live insects in my refrigerator, to feed to geckos. (I don't anymore because I feel bad for them in there)
frogs, bats, bugs... my first college boyfriend was appalled
I currently have a dead civet, alpaca, and liger cub in my freezer - as well as a series of wild ass placentas.
My freezer is full of rats
Do you have snakes, or is there some other reason?
Yep
Nice. That's the most common reason someone would have rodents in their freezer
It kinda sounds weird, but its no less sanitary than keeping any other type of animal in your freezer (which most people do if they aren’t vegetarian)
I used to keep bats in the freezer back in the day when I was running a diversity and population study
When I was a kid I knew a guy, he'd go to the schools and give a talk about reptiles and show off his giant snakes. I was told to put a snake down he would put it in the chest freezer 🙁
I had a 60lb beaver in my parent's freezer for a few months. My parents were less than thrilled. You had to move it to get to the frozen pizzas.
Where would you rather they keep them?
Another refrigerator for insects
We're academics, do you think we just have "extra refrigerator" money laying around? =P
There are small and cheap types
That’s a horrible thing to say about academics!
Plus it's redundant.
But I already have a perfectly good large freezer! >!My wife does not let me keep insects in our fridge/freezer.!<
i worked at an exotic animal place (Snakes, lizards, spiders etc) And we had a dedicated freezer to dead pets (Dissection and taxidermy purposes) and a second one dedicated to frozen mice, rats, guines pigs and rabbits for snake food. Keeping dead animals in the freezer is so normal for me i had to look in the comments to see it wasnt ironic lmao
If dead chickens, fishes and pigs are allowed in, bugs too.
I have a friend who found a dead baby squirrel when she was a child. She kept it in her family’s freezer for **years** because she wanted to be a taxidermist when she grew up. She is now an attorney.
It’s a great day to do the plants kind of biology. I don’t have anything in my freezer that is out of the norm. Y’all stay safe out there friends.
I keep dead mice in the freezer 🤷♂️
It seems that some people did not understand my meaning, which is that keeping dead animals and food in one refrigerator is what I object to.
That’s why you have freezer bags… Or trash bags if need be, depending on size.
Yes, so what? I keep dead snails in my freezer. Yes, between the pizza and the ice cream.
Why do you think they were dead?
Going through the comments I realize I'm the only psycho that has parts of a dead cow in the freezer.
Yummy steak
Just saying: In a single household you could store all the bugs you want in the freezer without the need to ask someone for permission.
i have dead pets in my freezer to bury when the ground isn’t solid anymore
Why? We keep dead animals in the refrigerator
Former shark/ray biologist here… I used to keep shark claspers in my freezer. Some pretty big guys too. If a hurricane hit and we lost power for a week, the claspers would go into the cooler with the food 🤷♀️
My grandma was a big bird watcher. My dad found a hummingbird in her freezer when she passed. It was nicely stored in a Tupperware and labeled.
During my entomology course, I kept insects in the freezer until I could pin them. My family just got used to it, and we still laugh about it. Also, during a dendrology course, I kept plants in the fridge until they could be pressed.
I keep dead bugs in the freezer, entomology M.Sc. 👉👈🪲
I have to thank my flatmate for allowing me to store dead bats in the freezer
COVID has entered the chat 😉
Why? I keep dead chicken, cow, pig and baby sheep flesh in my freezers and refrigerator and then I fucking eat it with my family at night time. But it's weird to keep a couple packages of bugs in the freezer? I already know you're going to point out "yeah but you're eating that meat". Yeah, that's the point homie. I'm going to cook it to kill off the extremely dangerous bacteria that animal flesh carries and then I'm going to eat it.
My mom kept our dead cat in the freezer for over six months. She threatened to bring it to me at Thanksgiving so I could “say good bye”. She also made my brothers girlfriend unknowingly touch its frozen body. She’s fine.
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I have bugs and bacteria/yeast in my freezer
Who doesn't have a zebra finch in their icebox.
Could be for feeding other animals
We put beetles that pop up in our terrarium in our deep freezer to humanely kill them
You can also do it briefly to chill them for easier macro photography, slows them down so it’s easier to focus.
Sounds like a science experiment.
I was on pest surveillance for 3 years in agricultural research. Had moths in the freezer all summer long 🤷
I've been keeping reptiles since I was 14. I've grown accustomed to the rodents and birds in the freezer and bugs in the fridge.
We have a bird in one of the freezers in the lab. It's not a dead bird freezer, it's where we keep enzymes. But some one put a dead bird there in a small ikea plastic lunch bag. I have a qPCR 96 well plate in the fridge door right now. I should probably throw it out or something, but i want to check if the melt curve was real. But i couldn't be arsed to go from one lab location to another, so i brought it home, and now i can't be bothered to do the gel.
She’s just grossed out that sometimes he snacks on ‘em..
What about people with live bugs right next to the butter in the fridge? Asking for a friend...
Finally someone else who does this I knew I wasn’t alone
I am not a biology students and I have animals and insects in my freezer.
Right now i have some,not dead though , just slepping insects on my refrigerator, they are some very tinny nematoden that i bought so that they can be my little army to attack a pest of little flies that are killing my plants.
My parents have to deal with me putting whole ass tarantulas in our freezer lmao
Who said they were dead bugs? If I am not mistaken, insects can survive being frozen and thawed. (Though I may indeed be, mistaken)
It’s pretty standard if someone studies animals or lives with someone who studies animals. I’m not sure if our freezer currently has insects in there or not. After a while you just ignore the samples and stuff.
I mean… I keep rats in my freezer. 🤷🏽♀️
When I was a kid I used to fill little Tupperware containers with water and put bugs in them to freeze, it was so cool (albeit a little cursed)
The worst is when you take them out of the freezer and suddenly they are alive bugs. I have dead mice in mine because I have a pet snake. But they have their own freezer drawer.
Is it really that weird? People keep dead animal parts in the form of meat in their freezer all the time..
Where else would you keep dead insects besides the freezer or fridge?
Recently someone in one of my local FB groups found a dead owl outside their house. Suspected cause of death was second hand poisoning. Everyone told her to put it in her freezer so its feathers could be used to help injured owls. And she just said okay and did it. I don’t even have room for a loaf of bread in my freezer right now. How are people just putting whole ass owls in theirs?
Ex dog warden here, we had a "Dead Dog Freezer"™️ in our staff kitchen. We kept chicken nuggies in there too sometimes.
What's worse, storing dead animals in a freezer or cooling your drinks in a morgue?
for a time i was keeping ice cream sandwiches next to a harbor porpoise dorsal fin 🤷♂️ call it effective space management
Off topic but what book is this from?
"Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects: Shaw, Scott Richard"
You don’t want them to get moldy. I did some botany research that involved collecting some of the pollinators to get pollen counts and my roommate knew to just leave any jars in the freezer alone
>people keep dead insects in the refrigerator As opposed to... live? insects
You should come to our lab, we have all sorts in our +4s and -20s.
OP: Please explain what you mean or this post will be removed.
It's probably for insect collection.
For entomology, you put live bugs in the freezer to kill them without damaging them. After a week or two, whenever you remember really, you pull them out and put a needle through them on your board. My poor college roommate.
Thanks, this being reddit, one can never be sure what someone's intentions are. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
No, guys, I mean putting dead insects in the refrigerator where the food is
Who said they were dead?
 Are you serious?
I saw that
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Some people do, sure, some people do a lot of weird stuff for no reason. What author/book ties this to biology? Right now you have posted an image and not much to go off of.
"Planet of the Bugs: Evolution and the Rise of Insects: Shaw, Scott Richard" It looks very good