Darn I missed a Dermestidae beetle thread, been so busy.
These are [my best guess anyway, hard to ID just the beetles since Anthrenus flavipes and Anthrenus verbasci look similar as adults] if I had to guess [based on the fact that it's starting to be spring] I'd lean more towards Anthrenus verbasci
, since they show very interesting annual rhythm. I would keep an eye on flowers brought into the home, and just generally keep an eye out, one or two beetles is nothing to freak about but lots at windows or something might be a concern [I'm really jealous since I've never gotten the chance to get any of these, I'm stuck with boring old Attagenus unicolor [black carpet beetles] which aren't as cool as these, not just for their colour but their behavior.]
If you do find larvae then you might want to be a little worried, the larval shed skins can cause allergic reactions in some people [me included I get really bad respiratory problems from prolonged exposure to their frass and shedded exoskeletons] they can feed on a lot of things, anything from clothing [esp if it's soiled with something, but even clean stuff can be attacked if it's not properly stored] as well as pet food, dander, pet hair and lots of other different food items.
The larvae have a really cool tuff at the end of them that shakes violently [I had someone show me their "colony" but seems that person has removed their videos, shame because it was a nice sized colony] and they would freak out and have their tuffs wiggle violently around. It's apparently used to ward off certain parasitic wasps that try to lay eggs on the larvae.
They don't develop very fast [none of the carpet beetles seem to] and also require dormant period in the last larval stage that is really hard to replicate [again going back to the weird annual rythms they seem to have] and colonies [if you can call them that, I do but more often are called cultures] take awhile to grow up to a size that's interesting. The beetles don't live very long, for the most part they mate lay eggs and the females will sometimes try and fly outside to feed on pollen. How many eggs they lay is dependent on weather they have access to water or not, it's been noted in various works [like scientific papers, etc.] that females given access to a watering source will lay a lot more eggs than those that aren't.
You don't need to worry about the adults causing any damage to clothing, carpeting etc. but the larvae can cause [at least if their numbers are high enough] some damage to woolen goods and some clothing. They take forever to grow up though [sometimes if conditions are unfavorable it can take up to 3 years!]
I'll likely add more stuff to this since it's pretty interesting but the short version is that that is a Carpet beetle probably Anthrenus verbasci
Here's the keys to the two species I'm assuming the beetle is, both are Cosmopolitan [worldwide]
Anthrenus verbasci
http://www.dermestid...usverbasci.html
Anthrenus flavipes
http://www.dermestid...usflavipes.html
If you can get a look of the underside you should be able to get the right one.
It's insane how many are in the Anthrenus genus alone.....
http://www.dermestid...bbildungen.html
^ that shows you just how many Dermestidae there is....... and to think I'll probably only ever get to keep 2 or 3 species...... [Dermestes lardarius and Attagenus unicolor for now]
Edited by dermy, March 8 2018 - 1:26 AM.
