Physical Characteristics

Looking similar to the varied carpet beetle, with white, yellow, orange and black mottling on its elytra, or hardened wing covers, the adult furniture carpet beetle ranges from 1/16 to 1/8 inches long, but its body is slightly larger, and its antennae don’t culminate with the bulbous clubs the varied carpet beetle’s antennae do. The underside of its body is white. The furniture carpet beetle’s body is oval in shape, but a little more rounded than the varied carpet beetle’s body. The larva of the furniture carpet beetle is wide near its head, and tapers to a point at its tail; it is white upon hatching but later darkens to dark red or chestnut brown, and it has longer bristles or hairs than the varied carpet beetle larva does.

Furniture Carpet Beetle

Behavior

The furniture carpet beetle gets its name from its larval form’s favorite meal, the fabric used to cover furniture, where it makes irregular holes; it also feeds on brushes, leaving uneven bristles, and carpets. This beetle larva also feeds on animal proteins found in wool, hair, horsehair, fur, feathers, horns, tortoise shell, silk, hooves, book-binding glue made from animal products, leather, dead insects and mice, dried cheese, and anything containing casein, a milk protein. However, it needs keratin to pupate, found in plant materials like wheat germ, rice, cottonseed cake, apricot kernels and mold spores. Adult furniture carpet beetles eat pollen and plant nectar. Breeding areas include wall or ceiling voids where dead insects and spiders may be found, old wasp or hornet nests in attics, rodent bait in attics, crawl spaces or basements, under eaves, around windows, behind baseboards, around any animal trophy heads or bodies preserved by taxidermy, in insulation or around the chimney – anywhere food for the hatched beetle larvae might be available.

 

Treatment:

Search out the source of infestation, and then eliminate them. The obvious places are mentioned above, places where the furniture carpet beetle will lay eggs so its hatched larvae can feed. Follow your search with a good cleanup. Your Clark technician will know the proper pest control strategy tailored specifically to the biology of the furniture carpet beetle, along with good exclusion and sanitation practices that you can put into action to help prevent future infestations.



Latin name: Anthrenus flavipes