How’s Your New Year’s Diet Going? (AKA: Where’s the bacon?)

I had some pictures sent to me by a pest control bestie so now my brain has been stuck on the Dermestid beetles. All names have been changed to protect the guilty.

These are a really cool group of beetles that infest food products from initial processing all along the food chain to residences, commercial kitchens, and more. They can be found in non-food products like pet and animal food, hides, feathers, and carrion. They can be a problem nearly anywhere there is food. Which is everywhere. ?

The background:

The cool thing about these pictures is they were all taken at the same account, and they were different species of Dermestids. They go by many names: warehouse beetles, cabinet beetles, hide beetles, museum beetles, carpet beetles, larder beetles, and more. That’s because around 60 species of Dermestids commonly infest products. Like all beetles, they go through four life stages: egg, larvae, pupae, adult. Time to develop from the egg to adult stage varies based on food, temperature, and other conditions but is often between one and two months. Adults are relatively short lived (about one to two months) and in that time will drop around 100 eggs. The larvae do the majority of the feeding damage, they are voracious little eaters.

The problem:

They have a preference for high protein foods, but that doesn’t stop them from eating other things. And some of those things we may not think of as food or high protein, but they are. Grain products, dried vegetation, flour (flour has protein in it!), seeds, nuts, milk powder, and so much more. About ten years ago, there was a massive recall of baby formulation due to Dermestids. In residential situations, these are commonly found in bagged pet food, bird seed, and fish food. Not just that, they can get to animals that may have died in a crawl space, attic, or wall void. As their food source is limited (because they have eaten it and produced subsequent generations that are hungrily looking for more) they move into structures.

Each species is slightly different in its preferences, but that’s only if it’s available. What made this case a bit harder was all the insects were larvae. So we were kinda lucky it was Dermestids because their larvae are fairly distinctive. In this case, we ID’ed Attagenus sp., Trogoderma sp., and Anthrenus sp.

?

Attagenus – AKA carpet beetles. Keratin, feathers, hair, dead insects.

Trogoderma – AKA warehouse beetles. Dry vegetable matter and animal proteins.

Anthrenus – AKA carpet beetles. Carpets, furs, silk, horn.

So what was going on here? I have no clue, I just got pictures, what do you want from me?

I do have some guesses. While it isn’t common to see more than one species of stored food beetle in an account, to see three different types of this family of beetles in one location is odd. I do know there was a variety of food items in this location including items like milk powder, pasta, flour, and more. Somehow, at least one species came in on raw ingredients and/or came in from the outside. Once that was allowed to grow into an infestation, other Dermestid species came in to take advantage. Because now there is more broken packages, spilled food, and most cool (to me at least) lots of dead bodies.

Insect bodies, not humans, get your mind out of the gutter. All those shed exoskeletons, dropped hairs, and dead adults are now a fabulous food source for other species.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there were other stored food insects there like Indian meal moths and rusty grain beetles. But I didn’t get pictures of those so I will only speculate.

The solution to preventing Dermestid issues is the same basic concepts of IPM for all pests. Monitoring is especially important to discover problems early (too late in this situation), find hotspots (all over the site by now), and target treatments (maybe a good fumigation?) for best efficacy. Inspecting areas with animal products and high protein food sources is key to finding any sanitation issues that can be dealt with and containing what can be contained.

How's your resolutions going, because if you need solutions, contact us here!

Lagniappe - this is FASCINATING!!!