The red-legged ham beetle, Necrobia rufipes is a predatory beetle

Beetle

Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...

 in the family Cleridae

Cleridae

Cleridae are a family of beetles of the superfamily Cleroidea. They are commonly known as checkered beetles. The Cleridae family has a worldwide distribution, and a variety of habitats and feeding preferences....

 with a cosmopolitan distribution

Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a taxon is said to have a cosmopolitan distribution if its range extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. For instance, the killer whale has a cosmopolitan distribution, extending over most of the world's oceans. Other examples include humans, the lichen...

.

The adult beetles are 3.5–7 mm (0.137795275590551–0.275590551181102 ) long, convex, straight sided, and the surface has indentations called punctures.
They are shiny metallic green or greenish blue in colour. The legs and antennae

Antenna (biology)

Antennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....

 are red (dark clubs). They feed on the meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

-infesting larvae of Calliphora

Calliphora

Calliphora is the type genus of blow flies, the family Calliphoridae.-Species in the genus Calliphora:...

or blow flies, Dermestidae and cheese skippers

Piophila

Piophila is a genus of small two-winged flies which includes the species known as the cheese fly. As a whole, the genus is often called wine flies; they prefer fermented foodstuffs to deposit their eggs...

. The adults are surface feeders, the larvae bore into dry or smoked meats and do most damage. The red-legged ham beetle also attacks bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

s, hides, copra

Copra

Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

, dried egg, cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

, guano

Guano

Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...

, bone meal

Bone meal

Bone meal is a mixture of crushed and coarsely ground bones that is used as an organic fertilizer for plants and formerly in animal feed. As a slow-release fertilizer, bone meal is primarily used as a source of phosphorus....

, dried fig

Common fig

The Common fig is a deciduous tree growing to heights of up to 6 m in the genus Ficus from the family Moraceae known as Common fig tree. It is a temperate species native to the Middle East.-Description:...

s, and palm nut

Arecaceae

Arecaceae or Palmae , are a family of flowering plants, the only family in the monocot order Arecales. There are roughly 202 currently known genera with around 2600 species, most of which are restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates...

 kernels. Although refrigeration

Refrigeration

Refrigeration is a process in which work is done to move heat from one location to another. This work is traditionally done by mechanical work, but can also be done by magnetism, laser or other means...

 has reduced the impact of the beetle on meats they are the most significant pest of dried and salt fish

Stockfish

Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air and wind on wooden racks on the foreshore, called "hjell". The drying of food is the world's oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage life of several years...

 including herring. They have been recorded in Egyptian mummies

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

 and were once known as Necrobia mumiarum Hope, 1834. Related species are Necrobia violacea which has all-dark legs and antennae and Necrobia ruficollis

Necrobia ruficollis

Necrobia ruficollis, the ham beetle, red-shouldered ham beetle or red-necked bacon beetle, is a predatory beetle in the family Cleridae with a cosmopolitan distribution.-Description:...

has light-coloured bases of the elytra(shoulders).
It is not to be confused with Korynetes caeruleus

Korynetes caeruleus

Korynetes caeruleus also known as the steely blue beetle is a predatory beetle in the family Cleridae.The adult is a shiny blue colour.The larvae live in tunneled wood that has been infested by the common furniture beetle and the deathwatch beetle and they feed on the larvae of these wood-damaging...

also a the steely blue beetle in the family Cleridae. Both beetles
have a significance in forensic entomology

Forensic entomology

Forensic entomology is the application and study of insect and other arthropod biology to criminal matters. It is primarily associated with death investigations; however, it may also be used to detect drugs and poisons, determine the location of an incident, and find the presence and time of the...

but for different reasons.