What Carpet Beetles Eat

And almost anything else they might encounter.

What carpet beetles eat.

However carpet beetles tend to eat a single large area of a fabric whereas moths create tiny holes all over garments. You may occasionally find carpet beetles in your pantry feeding on grains. Today s carpet is made from synthetic materials that carpet beetles won t eat. Carpet beetles have a wide variety of things that they eat and interestingly enough sometimes they won t even eat carpet.

Carpet beetles don t usually eat cotton linen or other plant based or synthetic fabrics but they may eat fabric blends or fabrics stained with animal products. You ll be able see damage on bed sheets linens clothing drapes and of course carpet. Carpet beetles can actually eat any animal product that comes into its contact. These are solid or splotchy black with specks of white tan and yellow.

Their feeding creates large isolated holes in the fabric. Unlike moths carpet beetles typically feed on one portion of fabric at a time. Carpet beetles are the most dangerous type of beetle to most homeowners. Common carpet beetles that eat clothes are the variegated black and common carpet beetles.

Carpet beetles can also thrive on lint hair and debris accumulating under baseboards and inside floor vents and ducts. Clothing furniture wool sisal jute carpets leather blankets pet food pet hair crumbs dead insects. The pests can also proliferate on bird nests animal carcasses and dead insects cluster flies lady beetles stink bugs wasps etc which tend to be associated with attics chimneys basements and light fixtures. They love to eat away the material that carpets are made out of i e.

Obviously carpet beetles will also eat through the fabrics in your home. Typically they like to feed off of animal based products. Carpet beetles like to gather in dark low traffic places in your home like closets storage areas your attic in air ducts and of course underneath your carpet. Carpet beetles are found in almost every part of the world however they are basically european based.

Unlike other species like wood beetles that only eat wood carpet beetles will eat almost anything. Verbasci was also the first insect to be shown to have an. Additionally carpet beetle larvae leave cast skins while molting which may cause allergic reactions and dermatitis in some highly sensitive individuals. They all are destructive towards fibers and only differ slightly in their appearance and lifecycle.