Carcass temperature in relation to botulism.

In 1984, we described greatly elevated temperatures within decaying duck car- casses and suggested that this feature of the carcass microenvironment provided a "milieu' ' favourable for growth and toxin production by Clostridium botulinum during cool weather (Wobeser and Gal- mut, 1984). At the time I was unaware of any other report of this phenomenon. I have recently found a study in which car- cass temperatures were measured. Payne (1965) used neonatal pig carcasses for the study of invertebrates associated with car- non. As occurred in ducks, the internal temperature of the pig carcasses rose much above that of either soil or air on day 3, and then as the flesh disappeared, declined to approximate that of the soil. Payne (1965) attributed the high internal tem- perature "to the high metabolic rates of the bacteria and dipterous larvae present." The maximum temperature recorded in a pig carcass was 37.7 C, which is lower than that found in duck carcasses, but this may be a result of the difference in insulative value of pelage and plumage, respectively. These observations strengthen the poten- tial importance of vertebrate carcasses as substrate for botulism toxin production, as the carcass may provide a microenviron- ment largely independent of ambient con- ditions.