Pest Files - Crawling Insects
Black Ant
Over wintering females or Queens lay their eggs in the spring. The white legless larva's hatch in about 3-4 weeks and are fed by the Queen on secretions from her salivary glands. The entire life cycle takes about 2 months. The nests can last for several years and can contain 15-20.000 ants.
Habits: Their life is mainly spent outside in the soil and under paving slabs etc. but because of the foraging for food they enter indoors and become a problem. As they forage for food they leave scent trails for the other ants to follow which is why you long lines of ants. They are a very social insect that is the reason you see them in large numbers. They do swarm usually twice a year it is then you will see the winged form also in large numbers.
Wood Louse
The adult wood louse is about 15mm in length, quite flat and slate grey in colour with seven pairs of legs. Wood lice are not insects but crustaceans.
Wood lice are usually found in damp areas and they are associated with dead and rotting vegetation and wood. They are often found beneath stones, flowerpots and other similar materials and nooks and crannies in the garden providing suitable cover.
There are about thirty-five species of wood lice and they are essentially garden creatures but will on occasions enter houses/buildings searching for protection from the onset of cold weather.
Once indoors they tend to group together mainly at the edges of carpets, floor coverings and under skirting boards. They can also be found in corners and dark places such as kitchen cupboards.
Silverfish
Several insects frequently occur in our homes and feed on or infest the foods we have stored in cupboards or other places. They also get into dog and cat food, stuffed birds, animal hides, etc. The more prevalent pests infest our flour and cereal products. We have included here the most common ones found in the U.K. Good sanitation practices as well as good buying practices, storage, and housekeeping are the best ways to avoid problems with these insects.
Firebrat
The Thysanura are a group of small wingless insects. While most species spend their time in decaying material, leaf litter and the like, a number of them have found urban living preferable. Silverfish are commonly found in older buildings and any place they can live undisturbed on old newspapers and books.
Firebrats, however, get their name from their preference for warm places, such as near ovens and heaters.
Carpet Beetle
Spring is the time adult carpet beetles show up at windows sills in the home. They are trying to move outdoors to feed on pollen. The damaging stage is the fuzzy brown larvae. They feed on wool, dead insects, animal hair, pet food, powder milk, and other sources of proteins.
Every home has a few but if you are seeing numerous beetles or larvae, there is a major source that must be located.
Fur Beetle
The Fur beetle and the Black Carpet beetle are usually described together, the only difference is the Black carpet beetle has white or yellow hairs on the wing covers. The larvae look hairy, with colour bands and have a tuft of hairs at their posterior. You can usually see the cast-off skins, which have the same banded appearance. Larvae avoid light, and when disturbed, will "play possum" and remain immobile for a short time before resuming activity.
The larva will pupate, invisibly, at the last moult, right inside the last larval skin. New adults will even remain inside the last skin for up to three weeks, before flying off to feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers.
The adult stage is attracted to light. The adults are essentially outdoor insects, mate and feed on flowers. After mating, the adult females seek out places to lay a total of almost a hundred eggs in any material that will support the larvae, such as bird nests, rabbit warrens and animal burrows. With indoor situations, items such as woollens, rugs and curtains are at risk of infestation.
Drugstore or Biscuit Beetle
The adults, the ones you will usually see, are small, about an eighth of an inch long, light brown or even red in colour and have a "humpback" appearance. They look almost identical to the Cigarette beetle. The wing covers of the Drugstore beetle have distinct grooves running from front to back. Cigarette beetles have smooth wing covers. Larvae of Drugstore beetles are hairless, the Cigarette beetle larvae look like they have a fuzzy coat Drugstore beetles feed on all kinds of foods and spices, including leather and furs, hair, drugs and books.
Depending on conditions, they can have as many as four generations per year. Normally, however, they have one generation per year in residential situations, so they are rather long-lived.
Spider Beetle
There are several kinds of spider beetles; the one pictured is the Australian spider beetle. They all look mostly alike, with the same oval body conformation, just different colouring. Spider beetles are very small, less than three sixteenths of an inch long, with oval bodies, long legs and bodies covered with short hairs and rows of small pits running the length of their wing covers. The head is invisible, viewed from above. They look like very small spiders.
Spider beetles can remain active during cold weather, and can be difficult to control because they also infest such a wide variety of products. The larvae develop on the foods they eat and old storage buildings can harbour infestations in collections of stored products. They can also bore into wooden and cardboard items to pupate.
Woodworm, Common Furniture Beetle
Common Furniture Beetle is the colloquial name in the UK for Anobium punctatum, which belongs to the family Anobiidae. It is also found in New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the world, where it is usually given the name "House Borer".
It is by far the most common wood-boring insect found in British buildings, being most prevalent in the south and east of the country.
The small holes made by the beetles as they emerge from wood are typically seen in old furniture and in the structural timbers of buildings constructed before the middle of the Twentieth Century.
Devil’s Coach – Horse Beetle
Devil's Coach-horse Beetle, Creophilus erythrocephalus, is a common predator of carrion, and with its bright red head, is a very easy to spot. Adults are early visitors to a corpse and they feed on larvae of all species of fly, including predatory fly larvae. They lay their eggs in the corpse, and the emerging larvae are also predators. Creophilus erythrocephalus has a long development time in the egg, so it is common during the later stages of decomposition.
As well as consuming maggots, they can also tear open the pupal cases of flies, so there is sufficient food to sustain them at a corpse for long periods.
Larder Beetle
The adult is a dark brown to black beetle, 7 to 9 mm in length, with a pale yellow six spotted band on the back of the abdomen. The under surface as well as the legs are covered with fine yellow hairs.
Food: Ham, bacon, meats, cheese, dried pet foods, dried museum specimens of all kinds, stored tobacco, dried fish, and all hides. The larvae seem to prefer fatty portions of meat rather than lean muscular portions.
Life Cycle: Larder beetle females lay 100 - 175 eggs. These eggs will hatch in 12 days or less. The larvae will eat constantly until it moults. It will moult 5 - 6 times before pupating. Often times the larvae will burrow into meat or even wood before it pupates. The complete life cycle may be completed with 40 - 50 days.
Trap Use and Placement: A simple sticky (blunder) trap is currently the best means to monitor for Larder beetles. The trap should be a flat design (Rather than a tray design) to allow for easy entry into the trap.
Book Louse
Psocids or Booklice have long, filamentous antennae and a characteristic bulging clypeus (the area just above the mouthparts). They have chewing mouthparts and the wings of domestic species are usually absent. They range in size from 1/25 to 1/13 of an inch (1 to 2 mm) in length. Coloration is from almost colourless to grey or light brown.
Food: Psocids feed upon microscopic moulds. Thus, any manufactured material of plant origin that would support the growth of these moulds is susceptible to their attack. They are found in nature on the bark of trees and shrubs, preferring damp, warm, undisturbed environments. In museum settings, they can commonly be found in books and book bindings, storage boxes, paper goods and herbaria collections.
Grain Weevil
The granary weevil female bores a hole into a kernel of grain and lays an egg, sealing the opening with gelatinous material. The egg hatches in a few days. A female can lay more than 200 eggs under favourable conditions (range 36-254). The entire life cycle from egg to adult maybe as short as one month during the summer or as long as 5 months during the winter, being very dependent upon the temperature. There are usually 4 generations per year. The adults can live 7-8 months Complete metamorphosis.
Habits: The grain weevil is usually confined to stored grain and is primarily transported by man. The larva typically requires a whole kernel for development but can develop in caked grain material. It attacks all kinds of grains and grain products. When disturbed it can pretend to be dead.
Black Ant
Over wintering females or Queens lay their eggs in the spring. The white legless larva's hatch in about 3-4 weeks and are fed by the Queen on secretions from her salivary glands. The entire life cycle takes about 2 months. The nests can last for several years and can contain 15-20.000 ants.
Habits: Their life is mainly spent outside in the soil and under paving slabs etc. but because of the foraging for food they enter indoors and become a problem. As they forage for food they leave scent trails for the other ants to follow which is why you long lines of ants. They are a very social insect that is the reason you see them in large numbers. They do swarm usually twice a year it is then you will see the winged form also in large numbers.
Wood Louse
The adult wood louse is about 15mm in length, quite flat and slate grey in colour with seven pairs of legs. Wood lice are not insects but crustaceans.
Wood lice are usually found in damp areas and they are associated with dead and rotting vegetation and wood. They are often found beneath stones, flowerpots and other similar materials and nooks and crannies in the garden providing suitable cover.
There are about thirty-five species of wood lice and they are essentially garden creatures but will on occasions enter houses/buildings searching for protection from the onset of cold weather.
Once indoors they tend to group together mainly at the edges of carpets, floor coverings and under skirting boards. They can also be found in corners and dark places such as kitchen cupboards.
Silverfish
Several insects frequently occur in our homes and feed on or infest the foods we have stored in cupboards or other places. They also get into dog and cat food, stuffed birds, animal hides, etc. The more prevalent pests infest our flour and cereal products. We have included here the most common ones found in the U.K. Good sanitation practices as well as good buying practices, storage, and housekeeping are the best ways to avoid problems with these insects.
Firebrat
The Thysanura are a group of small wingless insects. While most species spend their time in decaying material, leaf litter and the like, a number of them have found urban living preferable. Silverfish are commonly found in older buildings and any place they can live undisturbed on old newspapers and books.
Firebrats, however, get their name from their preference for warm places, such as near ovens and heaters.
Carpet Beetle
Spring is the time adult carpet beetles show up at windows sills in the home. They are trying to move outdoors to feed on pollen. The damaging stage is the fuzzy brown larvae. They feed on wool, dead insects, animal hair, pet food, powder milk, and other sources of proteins.
Every home has a few but if you are seeing numerous beetles or larvae, there is a major source that must be located.
Fur Beetle
The Fur beetle and the Black Carpet beetle are usually described together, the only difference is the Black carpet beetle has white or yellow hairs on the wing covers. The larvae look hairy, with colour bands and have a tuft of hairs at their posterior. You can usually see the cast-off skins, which have the same banded appearance. Larvae avoid light, and when disturbed, will "play possum" and remain immobile for a short time before resuming activity.
The larva will pupate, invisibly, at the last moult, right inside the last larval skin. New adults will even remain inside the last skin for up to three weeks, before flying off to feed on the pollen and nectar of flowers.
The adult stage is attracted to light. The adults are essentially outdoor insects, mate and feed on flowers. After mating, the adult females seek out places to lay a total of almost a hundred eggs in any material that will support the larvae, such as bird nests, rabbit warrens and animal burrows. With indoor situations, items such as woollens, rugs and curtains are at risk of infestation.
Drugstore or Biscuit Beetle
The adults, the ones you will usually see, are small, about an eighth of an inch long, light brown or even red in colour and have a "humpback" appearance. They look almost identical to the Cigarette beetle. The wing covers of the Drugstore beetle have distinct grooves running from front to back. Cigarette beetles have smooth wing covers. Larvae of Drugstore beetles are hairless, the Cigarette beetle larvae look like they have a fuzzy coat Drugstore beetles feed on all kinds of foods and spices, including leather and furs, hair, drugs and books.
Depending on conditions, they can have as many as four generations per year. Normally, however, they have one generation per year in residential situations, so they are rather long-lived.
Spider Beetle
There are several kinds of spider beetles; the one pictured is the Australian spider beetle. They all look mostly alike, with the same oval body conformation, just different colouring. Spider beetles are very small, less than three sixteenths of an inch long, with oval bodies, long legs and bodies covered with short hairs and rows of small pits running the length of their wing covers. The head is invisible, viewed from above. They look like very small spiders.
Spider beetles can remain active during cold weather, and can be difficult to control because they also infest such a wide variety of products. The larvae develop on the foods they eat and old storage buildings can harbour infestations in collections of stored products. They can also bore into wooden and cardboard items to pupate.
Woodworm, Common Furniture Beetle
Common Furniture Beetle is the colloquial name in the UK for Anobium punctatum, which belongs to the family Anobiidae. It is also found in New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the world, where it is usually given the name "House Borer".
It is by far the most common wood-boring insect found in British buildings, being most prevalent in the south and east of the country.
The small holes made by the beetles as they emerge from wood are typically seen in old furniture and in the structural timbers of buildings constructed before the middle of the Twentieth Century.
Devil’s Coach – Horse Beetle
Devil's Coach-horse Beetle, Creophilus erythrocephalus, is a common predator of carrion, and with its bright red head, is a very easy to spot. Adults are early visitors to a corpse and they feed on larvae of all species of fly, including predatory fly larvae. They lay their eggs in the corpse, and the emerging larvae are also predators. Creophilus erythrocephalus has a long development time in the egg, so it is common during the later stages of decomposition.
As well as consuming maggots, they can also tear open the pupal cases of flies, so there is sufficient food to sustain them at a corpse for long periods.
Larder Beetle
The adult is a dark brown to black beetle, 7 to 9 mm in length, with a pale yellow six spotted band on the back of the abdomen. The under surface as well as the legs are covered with fine yellow hairs.
Food: Ham, bacon, meats, cheese, dried pet foods, dried museum specimens of all kinds, stored tobacco, dried fish, and all hides. The larvae seem to prefer fatty portions of meat rather than lean muscular portions.
Life Cycle: Larder beetle females lay 100 - 175 eggs. These eggs will hatch in 12 days or less. The larvae will eat constantly until it moults. It will moult 5 - 6 times before pupating. Often times the larvae will burrow into meat or even wood before it pupates. The complete life cycle may be completed with 40 - 50 days.
Trap Use and Placement: A simple sticky (blunder) trap is currently the best means to monitor for Larder beetles. The trap should be a flat design (Rather than a tray design) to allow for easy entry into the trap.
Book Louse
Psocids or Booklice have long, filamentous antennae and a characteristic bulging clypeus (the area just above the mouthparts). They have chewing mouthparts and the wings of domestic species are usually absent. They range in size from 1/25 to 1/13 of an inch (1 to 2 mm) in length. Coloration is from almost colourless to grey or light brown.
Food: Psocids feed upon microscopic moulds. Thus, any manufactured material of plant origin that would support the growth of these moulds is susceptible to their attack. They are found in nature on the bark of trees and shrubs, preferring damp, warm, undisturbed environments. In museum settings, they can commonly be found in books and book bindings, storage boxes, paper goods and herbaria collections.
Grain Weevil
The granary weevil female bores a hole into a kernel of grain and lays an egg, sealing the opening with gelatinous material. The egg hatches in a few days. A female can lay more than 200 eggs under favourable conditions (range 36-254). The entire life cycle from egg to adult maybe as short as one month during the summer or as long as 5 months during the winter, being very dependent upon the temperature. There are usually 4 generations per year. The adults can live 7-8 months Complete metamorphosis.
Habits: The grain weevil is usually confined to stored grain and is primarily transported by man. The larva typically requires a whole kernel for development but can develop in caked grain material. It attacks all kinds of grains and grain products. When disturbed it can pretend to be dead.
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