. Carpet beetles. Beetles. CARPET BEETLES By E. A. Back, principal entomologist, Division of Insects Effecting Man and Animals, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine Carpet beetles, sometimes called "buffalo moths", can cause great damage to house furnishings and clothing containing wool (fig. 1), hair, bristles (fig. 2), fur, feathers, and other animal substances. They can also subsist upon mealy or floury material. They do not normally eat wood and never weaken timbers. They do not spin webbing on the article attacked, as do some clothes moths. Because of their habit of enterin
. Carpet beetles. Beetles. CARPET BEETLES By E. A. Back, principal entomologist, Division of Insects Effecting Man and Animals, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine Carpet beetles, sometimes called "buffalo moths", can cause great damage to house furnishings and clothing containing wool (fig. 1), hair, bristles (fig. 2), fur, feathers, and other animal substances. They can also subsist upon mealy or floury material. They do not normally eat wood and never weaken timbers. They do not spin webbing on the article attacked, as do some clothes moths. Because of their habit of entering wall spaces, where they may remain quietly for some time out of reach of the ordinary house-cleaning operations, they are even more difficult to control than clothes moths in many Figure 1.—Edge of a wool carpet being- eaten by larvae of the carpet beetle. Xote that the larvae are eating only the woolen pile, leaving untouched the vegetable fibers of the warp. Kinds of Carpet Beetles Four species of carpet beetles are commonly found in dwellings. They are the common carpet beetle (Anthrenus scrophulariae L.), the furniture carpet beetle (A. vorax Waterh.), the varied carpet, beetle (A. verbasci L.), and the black carpet beetle (Attagenus piceus Oliv.). None of these, in any stage of growth, has a body length greater than about three-sixteenths to one-fourth of an inch, with the exception of very large specimens of the larvae of the black carpet beetle, which may shed skins half an inch long. The adults are hard-shelled beetles which are broadly or elongate oval. The adult of the black carpet beetle (fig. 3) is uniformly blackish, with brownish legs. ^ The others have blackish or brownish bodies, but their body color is concealed by a dense covering of small scales so colored as to form designs that are helpful in separating the 11144°—38 Issued March 1938. 1. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanc
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