What Carpet Beetles Eat

Carpet beetles can actually eat any animal product that comes into its contact.

What carpet beetles eat.

Carpet beetles are the most dangerous type of beetle to most homeowners. 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. These are solid or splotchy black with specks of white tan and yellow. Clothing furniture wool sisal jute carpets leather blankets pet food pet hair crumbs dead insects.

Obviously carpet beetles will also eat through the fabrics in your home. The varied carpet beetle anthrenus verbasci is a 3 mm long beetle belonging to the family dermestidae they are a common species often considered a pest of domestic houses and particularly natural history museums where the larvae may damage natural fibers and can damage carpets furniture clothing and insect collections. Typically they like to feed off of animal based products. Unlike moths carpet beetles typically feed on one portion of fabric at a time.

Carpet beetles can also thrive on lint hair and debris accumulating under baseboards and inside floor vents and ducts. Carpet beetles are found in almost every part of the world however they are basically european based. And almost anything else they might encounter. You may occasionally find carpet beetles in your pantry feeding on grains.

They love to eat away the material that carpets are made out of i e. Common carpet beetles that eat clothes are the variegated black and common carpet beetles. For example fur feathers wool silk leather and bed. You ll be able see damage on bed sheets linens clothing drapes and of course carpet.

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 all are destructive towards fibers and only differ slightly in their appearance and lifecycle. Their feeding creates large isolated holes in the fabric. Carpet beetles have a wide variety of things that they eat and interestingly enough sometimes they won t even eat carpet.

Additionally carpet beetle larvae leave cast skins while molting which may cause allergic reactions and dermatitis in some highly sensitive individuals. 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. 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.