Longhorned beetles are the fifth largest family of Coleoptera by number of species. They are easily distinguished by their long antennae, which are 2-4 times their body size. The family includes 26 thousand species, of which 583 live in Russia. The distribution of beetles is associated with forests; they are found in places rich in wood. Most of the representatives of the group are of medium size. One of the common types of leptura is four-banded. The beetle has four yellow bands on its elytra. Adults feed on nectar, while larvae require deciduous wood.
What are carpet beetles?
The name carpet beetle tells you almost everything you need to know about these little creatures.
These bugs are well known for infesting clothing, carpets, upholstery and just about anything you need to walk on barefoot.
Even worse, they not only infest your carpet, but lay eggs and reproduce in it.
You don't know you have carpet beetles until you come across them. So, here's everything you need to know about them.
There are several types of carpet beetles, all of them oval in shape.
They also vary in color depending on their maturity and type of species.
The most common carpet beetles are the black bark beetle.
The black bark beetle feeds on fabric and food items such as grain. They are dark brown to black in color and bullet shaped.
A variety of carpet beetles feed on dead insects and other fibrous material.
In the adult stage, they reach approximately 2-3 mm in length and have wings covered with white, brown and yellow spots.
So they have a more or less spotted appearance.
The common bark beetle is also known as the "Cow Carpet Beetle" and feeds on any material made from animal by-products.
And their shell is covered with black and white patterned scales, and they also have scales along the middle of the shell.
What does the soldier bug eat and what harm does it cause?
Soldier bugs are quite unpretentious in their diet. For a full-fledged existence, they only need plant juice, which they suck out by piercing a stem or leaf. After such an invasion of bugs, the plant begins to slowly die and stops bearing fruit. Vegetables, fruits and berries seriously damaged by soldier bugs are no longer suitable for food.
The photo shows what a plant destroyed by soldiers looks like:
Of course, there are more dangerous pests in agriculture, but the soldier bug can also cause a lot of trouble. Vineyards are especially affected by its rapid proliferation, where the insect can damage the berries of elite varieties.
In the absence of fresh plant sap, red soldier bugs can feed on carrion, gathering in groups on the corpses of other insects and even vertebrates.
“At my dacha, some red beetles have taken a liking to a bench and a tree. I looked on the Internet that this insect is a soldier bug. It seemed harmless and harmless, I didn’t poison them and left them as they were. After a while, I noticed that the tops of the carrots in the garden were developing abnormally - they were constantly curling and not stretching. It is this bed that is closest to the bench. So now I’m thinking, could the carrot soldiers damage the carrots, or is it some other pest?”
Vasily Petrovich, Zhitomir
This is interesting
Despite the general image of a benevolent insect, soldier bugs often display cannibalistic tendencies. The main food of the bug is nutritious juices, which it extracts not only from plants, but also from dead insects and small animals. If a dead brother gets in the way of a soldier bug, he will not disdain even such a meal. Usually these insects feed in a group; the photo clearly shows one of the cases of such group cannibalism:
How to find them?
Carpet beetles are known to hide in the dark and in secluded areas of your home.
Many people confuse them with bedbugs, and they also infest beds by feeding on dead skin cells and sheets.
However, unlike bedbugs, they do not bite you. They will irritate your skin, especially if you have an allergic reaction to them.
However, they don't bite. At worst, you will most likely develop bite-like marks on your skin if you ever come into contact with these carpet beetles.
However, they eat fabrics in your home, so if you find damage in your linens and sheets, then you most likely have bark beetles in your home.
However, unlike moths, they feed on one piece of tissue at a time. So the damage will be large and isolated holes in your fabric.
As they feed, they shed their skin to continue growing. Faded skin is often translucent and flaky. They often shed their skin in the same area where they feed.
Distribution and behavior of toy soldiers
Beetles live in temperate climate zones in Eurasia, and are also found in North Africa and North America. The bug can be seen at almost any time of the year, except winter. There are especially many of them in the spring, when the sun warms up well. They sit in small groups in open areas.
On trees, red beetles with black dots take a liking to old bark. They are also located on loose boards, on bricks, on fences, and even in houses they can be seen in rural areas. In essence, these insects are completely harmless.
The composition of their diet includes fruits that have fallen to the ground, seeds, and plant juice. Their main feature is that they sometimes eat their relatives when they live in large colonies.
At the end of autumn, beetles with red backs and black dots lie down for the winter under fallen leaves, under the bark of trees and in other places sheltered from the wind and severe frosts. With the onset of winter, soldiers enter the adult insect stage. Nature has endowed them with an unpleasant odor to repel natural enemies.
What natural remedies exist to combat the carpet beetle?
Carpet beetles are most often attracted to loose or easily consumed food sources.
They usually feed on damaged tissue, but can chew through entire tissue.
They especially love to feast on hairballs, dust, lint, damaged furniture and clothing.
So clearing away the debris that attracts them is one of the best ways to prevent them. Regular vacuuming and dusting will also keep infestations at bay.
The longest lasting infestations are those that have a constant food source.
So if you have old furniture or damaged pieces of fabric, this will definitely be attractive to them.
Old clothes, carpeting, old rugs and sheets are especially attractive to these pests.
Therefore, one of the best things you can do is to go through your belongings, looking for any materials that may contain these pests and get rid of them.
You will have to regularly clean and launder all your fabrics to keep your home carpet bug-free.
If you are not using a particular fabric, store it in an airtight container to make it difficult for bugs to access.
Bugs are especially frustrating, and once you spot one, you'll no doubt be doing some spring cleaning for a few days afterwards.
Here's a more detailed guide on how you can rid your home of these carpet beetles.
- The first thing you should do is vacuum your surfaces. If you see adults or larvae on your carpets and furniture, vacuum them immediately.
- Steam cleaning is your next step. Steam clean over the same areas you vacuumed, and the heat and moisture will remove bugs and eggs.
- Wash your pillows and clothes. Use hot water and detergent to wash your clothes, linen towels and clothing. The water should be as hot as possible so that you can kill both the adults and the larvae. If your clothes have been contaminated, the best thing to do would be to throw them away unless you want to wash them. Ultimately, you need to dispose of them in a plastic bag and place it in a sealed trash container.
- Vinegar is very useful in getting rid of carpet beetles. Wipe or spray your surfaces with vinegar, especially apple cider vinegar. This can be done on your shelves, window sills, drawers, hangers and carpets to remove any dirt or food debris.
- If you are still afraid that they will remain, apply boric acid to the infected areas. Sprinkle this insecticide on your furniture and carpets and you will kill any remaining bugs. The boric acid should be left untouched for about two hours and then vacuumed up the residue and disposed of in a vacuum bag.
- If you want to use an internal insecticide, you can do so. This can be used around your baseboards, under sinks and any cracks or crevices where you think your carpet beetles might be hiding.
How to get rid of carpet beetles?
Once you have discovered a carpet beetle infestation in your home, you need to make a decision.
While there are many home remedies you can use to eliminate them from your home, many people feel more comfortable calling a professional exterminator.
However, if you want a few more options when it comes to ridding your home of these pests, here are a few steps you can try.
One of the best ways to eliminate them is to use an insecticide.
To make sure the product won't stain your carpets, test a small area quickly.
Also, be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions to ensure it is safe for use with pets and people.
Diatomaceous earth is another natural product that you can use to rid your home of these pests.
Ultimately it is a desiccant that will kill the bugs by dehydrating it. You can use it to rid your closets, beds and even furniture of these pests.
You should apply it the same way you would apply boric acid to eliminate pests.
When purchasing this product, choose one that is safe for people and pets.
However, when applying it, you should use a mask and a respirator to avoid inhaling fine dust particles during application.
Although these pests may not chew your items, the adult females will lay eggs and breed on your fabrics and carpets.
You should also keep some bug spray on hand to use when you encounter them.
Prevention is always better than cure.
So to stop adult carpet beetles from entering your home and breeding, hanging sticky tape near your windows will catch them.
If you find that you have this pest infestation, use sticky pheromone tape on windowsills and cabinets to stop them from entering and laying eggs.
List of Tips for Removing Carpet Beetles
If you notice signs of carpet beetle infestation inside your home, then your main concern is how to get rid of this infestation.
There are several ways to do this, as well as several tips and tricks that you can apply to remove these pests from your home permanently and successfully.
Depending on where the infestation is located, you may need to employ some additional destruction methods as well as some general removal methods.
So, here's what you need to kill carpet beetles and eliminate them from your home for good.
- First you will need to take your handheld vacuum cleaner. Vacuuming your mattresses, sofas, carpets and various other surfaces is your first step in the elimination process.
- Next, you must get rid of heavily damaged items. This could be blankets, linens, clothes or any other items that you can afford to part with.
- Your clothes and linen should then be washed at the highest temperature possible. To do this, you should use detergent and very hot water.
- The next step is to dry clean your delicate textiles. If you have items at home that cannot be washed, they should be dry cleaned and disinfected. You should call a professional to take care of this step for you.
- Steam cleaning or hot water extraction is recommended at this stage. You can use a home steam cleaner or hire a professional to use pressurized hot water extraction techniques.
- Contaminated food should be thrown away, and this goes without saying, since no one would want to have food contaminated with carpet beetles for dinner.
- Anything that has been infested with carpet beetles must be destroyed. Hairbrushes and other personal items exposed to these pests should be thrown away immediately.
- Then use an appropriate insecticide that is safe for pets and people to control the average infestation inside your home. Any store-bought pesticide will do. Finally, sprinkle the affected surfaces with boric acid powder and leave it for a couple of hours before vacuuming up the residue.
Another effective way to kill beetles is to freeze them. Take one of your fabrics and linens and freeze them for at least 48 hours to kill carpet beetles.
If you are using a frost-free freezer, you will need to freeze them for a couple of days.
Don't leave anything to chance, and after freezing your clothes and linens, wash them to ensure you are free of carpet beetles. The same goes for your rugs and rugs.
Some other convenient ways to get rid of carpet beetles include the use of essential oils.
The oil kills various insects at any stage of their life cycle. It does this by entering the body and disrupting the hormonal system.
Cedar oil is responsible for dissolving the eggs of carpet beetles, as well as dehydrating and suffocating adult beetles.
Eucalyptus oil has a strong odor to these carpet beetles and they perceive it as dangerous and avoid the smell at all costs.
Clove oil is also very irritating to Carpet Beetles, and just as they hate eucalyptus oil, they will not go near the smell of clove oil.
Borax can also be used to get rid of these pests by spraying against carpet beetles.
You can dilute it with water and spray it directly on carpet beetles or sprinkle it in powder form on infested surfaces.
Once you do this, you need to vacuum the entire house to pick up any leftovers.
In fact, vacuuming should also be done before application to eliminate any dust and debris.
Interesting facts about carpet beetles
Carpet beetles are one of the most common household pests found inside your home.
If you have never seen them in your home, then most likely at some point you will discover them.
However, here are some interesting facts about carpet beetles that you should know.
Carpet beetles can't bite you, but they can still hurt you. One of the things you don't have to worry about is getting bitten by a Carpet Beetle.
The beetles do not have stingers large enough to bite a person. They also have no poison.
However, just because you don't have to worry about getting sick from a carpet beetle bite doesn't mean they don't carry other health problems.
Cross contamination is very likely when carpet beetles come into contact with food consumed by humans.
Larvae of carpet beetles are more destructive than adults. Unlike other pests, adult carpet beetles are not the ones that cause damage to your home.
The larvae are to blame for this. They feed on fabric, wool, leather, fur and almost any other fabric you have in your home.
They can damage anything from clothing to upholstery, and they can live for a long period of time.
In fact, they can go without food for up to several weeks and move around your home in search of food sources.
Adult carpet beetles are responsible for the devastation of your gardens. Surprisingly, they do not feed on the same food as the larvae.
They happily feed on pollen and nectar that are found outside your home and in your gardens.
They also love to feast on your favorite foods such as flour, rice and cereal. These pests also commonly feed on flower petals.
Black carpet beetles. They are the most common type of Carpet Beetle found indoors and they feed on dry meat, insects and plants.
This is one of the most common types that you will find in your kitchen cabinets.
Prevention
Which method of dealing with carpet beetles would you choose?
Freezing out Chemistry
Prevention is easier than getting rid of pests. Actions need to be taken:
- place mosquito nets in window frames;
- from time to time examine clothing and personal belongings for insects;
- put mothballs in cabinets and other secluded corners;
- Clean your home regularly.
Prevention against the arrival of parasites is always useful. Traditional methods are always effective and accessible. It is worth taking into account chemicals, and safety precautions must also be observed. Let every home be light and cozy, where pests will never penetrate.
