Anatomy Of A Carpet Beetle

Carpet beetles often confused with bed bugs are small pests that can cause a large amount of damage if left untreated attracted to natural fibers carpet beetles can damage carpets furniture and clothing.

Anatomy of a carpet beetle. They have a round spherical body. Carpet mites although you may see the terms carpet mites and carpet beetles used interchangeably these two pests are actually quite different. Carpet beetles are attracted to loose easily consumed food sources. Head thorax abdomen here are the different parts of a beetle explained.

Usually they are brown or black in color with specks of white on their backs. Cleaning up the debris that attracts carpet beetles is the single best way. The pests can also proliferate on bird nests animal carcasses and dead insects cluster flies lady beetles stink bugs wasps etc which tend to be associated with attics chimneys basements and light fixtures. They like to devour natural fibers such as cotton wool fur and leather.

Varied carpet beetles are the smallest type of carpet beetle and have a slightly rounded shell. Larvae can survive for several weeks without food. The carpet beetle is referred to as the anthrenus verbasci that grows from 1 7 mm to a maximum of 3 5 mm. In this post we ll talk about carpet mites what causes carpet beetles where carpet beetles come from and how to avoid a carpet beetle infestation.

The anatomy of the beetle reflects this relationship with adaptations designed specifically for penetrating the bark and phloem of the host tree. As you can see a typical beetle is made up much like any other insect comprising of three main parts. Carpet beetles will also feed off the felt under furniture and lamps and inside musical instrument cases. Eggs larvae the life cycle of the carpet beetle begins when an adult female lays her eggs carpet beetles can lay their eggs indoors although they may also infest the nests of birds mice and other insects after mating near sources of light females can lay more than 100 eggs at a time which will hatch into larvae within seven to 35 days.

Abdomen this is the segmented tail end of a. Carpet beetle larvae can leave irregular holes in carpets and fabric and eating through whole chunks of wool silk feathers and leather. Meanwhile when they molt their dead skin can cause allergic reactions and dermatitis in sensitive individuals. The bristly hairs found on carpet beetle larvae can cause skin irritation.

Although they can chew through whole fabric they re more likely to seek out damaged or torn fabrics. They re particularly prone to eating lint dust hairballs damaged furniture and dead insects. The diagram below shows the external anatomy of a typical beetle. In general bark beetles have a hard exoskeleton a three region body head thorax and abdomen two compound eyes three pairs of jointed legs and two antennae.