Some people might suggest that the inside of an embalmed corpse is no place to bring up a small child. Looking after babies is an exhausting, smelly business at the best of times, but the dead body of a small rodent means one thing to a pair of burying beetles (Nicrophorus vespilloides): the perfect place to raise a family. Converting the carcass into a hidden underground ‘crypt’, the beetles regurgitate meat to their young, until they mature.