Carpet beetle
| Carpet beetle | ||||||||||||
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Carpet beetle ( Anthrenus scrophulariae ), red color variant |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Anthrenus scrophulariae | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The carpet beetle or figwort flower beetle ( Anthrenus scrophulariae ) is a beetle of the bacon beetle family (Dermestidae). He belongs with his relatives, the cabinet beetles ( Anthrenus Museorum ) and the varied carpet beetle ( Anthrenus verbasci ) the most common material pests in homes.
features
The beetles reach a body length of three to 4.5 millimeters and are somewhat similar to ladybirds . Their basic body color is black, but is completely covered by mostly different colored scales. A more or less continuous red band runs along the seam of the wing cover. In addition, there are three only hinted at, light-colored transverse bands on the upper wings . Further groups with red scales can occur at the edge of this. The pronotum is colored light and red on the sides and dark in the middle. At the seam to the wing it is colored finely red. In addition to the red variant, there are also beetles that have a yellow color instead. The underside of the beetle is also covered with scales and has a colorful pattern. The antennae have eleven links, the last three of which form a club.
The larvae of the carpet beetle are about six millimeters long, are densely haired and also have arrow hairs.
A drawing of the beetle and its larva (Bollow 1958) can be found in Bellmann / Honomichl p. 189, Fig. D-6.
Occurrence
The beetles occur worldwide, but are absent in the cold regions, such as the far north. As a cultural follower , they are very often found in people's surroundings. In Europe they fly from May to July, in the vicinity of humans they occur all year round.
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Way of life
The adults feed on pollen and nectar from white-flowering plants, especially hawthorn , mountain ash and umbelliferous plants . The larvae can be found wherever products of animal origin or substances rich in keratin and chitin , for example dead, dried-up insects , hair or feathers, can be found. But they also eat textiles and wool. For insect collections , they can be very harmful sometimes. In the wild, they develop under bark or in bird nests, more rarely in the nests of mammals . Beetles that hatch from bird nests on houses also penetrate the houses from there.
development
The female lays up to twenty eggs in a suitable place, for example on a woolen product, only once a year. After just a few days, light-shy larvae hatch from the eggs, which, through several moults, become a full-grown insect in about a year.
See also
literature
- Karl Wilhelm Harde, František Severa: The Kosmos Käferführer. The Central European beetle . 4th edition, Kosmos, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-440-06959-1 .
- Heiko Bellmann , Klaus Honomichl : Biology and ecology of the insects . A pocket dictionary. Founded by Werner Jacobs and Maximilian Renner. With a foreword by Karl von Frisch . 4th edition, Elsevier, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8274-1769-5 .
Web links
- Anthrenus scrophulariae in Fauna Europaea
- Carpet beetle in the lexicon of pests (German)
- Carpet beetle at insect box (German)
- Information from the environmental advisory service of the city of Münster (PDF, 245 kB)