What are these?

HI guys/gals, i've been finding these little critters in my house lately, and want to know what they are. I HOPE they are NOT roaches, these things appear to possible be dermestid beetles, I've been finding little shed skins of worms with some fuzzy/hairy parts on them.

Here are some pictures:






THese are of the biggest of the beetle/bug that i've found, and the only one i could get a good picture of. The piece behind the beetle is essentially its guts, after i squished it.

Thanks in advance, , and if anyone has tips for erradicating these they would be appreciated.

Mori

it looks like a type of chaffe beetle i get them i feed them to my praying mantis. They like tom eat clothes i think.

My guess would be that you are correct, it's probably a dermestid beetle, although I've not seen them with white markings on top. It may be just a different dpecies of dermestid than the ones that turn up around my house, or is the white a side effect of the squishing?

The larvae are hairy, so again, sounds like a dermestid. My infestation came from crickets, as some shipments are heavily infested.

Getting rid of them is tricky. First, you need to eliminate as many food sources as you can. Cricket and cockroach bins are common sources, keeping them clean enough to prevent dermestids is a challenge. Left over pet food will also be attarctive to them. You can also set traps. A cup of water with a little soap in it with a dead cricket floating will trap them, and the sticky flypaper strips will attract them once there's some other dead insects on it.

They can destroy a pinned insect collection virtually overmight, so watch out for that. Other than that, they're mainly just very annoying rather than being too big a pest. I also think that since they've been around, I have fewer fly problems as the beetles out compete them for oragnic debris.

Wade

thanks for the help guys,

they are living in the cracks between the hardwood floorboards, so i've been vaccuuming out the cracks to be rid of as many of these critters as possible. they seem to like the fluff that accumulates there.

I am SO incredibly relieved they aren't roaches.

the white piece that is above the beetle on the pictures is it's guts after squishing. there is the colour patch on the beetle itself which is a light brownish colour compared to the rest of the body.

once again, thanks, and any more advice is welcome

Mori

Wade said:

My guess would be that you are correct, it's probably a dermestid beetle, although I've not seen them with white markings on top. It may be just a different dpecies of dermestid than the ones that turn up around my house, or is the white a side effect of the squishing?

Click to expand...

I can only add that it is a dermestid beetle. Dermestes lardarius. I posted some pics of that specie before:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showpost.php?p=414495&postcount=98

This one eat meat and other animal organic stuff. D. lardarius should be easy to rid off. Much worse are Anthrenus and Attagenus species. They eat almost everything and they larvae are very resistant to lack of food and water.

And something more... in nature they live in bird's nests. They spend winter under bark of trees.