Household wildlife
Dec. 20th, 2005 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanOne of my cherished roles is that of naturalist of domestic fauna. I love it when someone brings me an animal (usually a bug) they found in or around their home for me to identify. A friend who knows this about me brought me this specimen, found in her kitchen pantry:
In times like this, I covet![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cottonmanifesto's camera. My little one did an okay job, once I blew the picture up a bit:
It was easy enough seeing this image to identify the creature as a dermestid beetle larva. Dermestid beetles (and their larvae) are famous and infamous among people who keep biological specimens. They are useful as defleshers of bone--you can buy little vials full of them to set upon skeletal specimens to clean the bones of skin and dried viscera. Alas, if you keep taxidermy or preserved insects, dermestids are destructors that will reduce your collection to crumbled waste. It was probably these beetles that ruined a chipmunk taxidermy I have, as well as a very expensive wool suit my father in law gave me. Their taste for animal fibers, whether attached to the preserved skin of a mounted chipmunk or woven into a jacket or oriental rug has earned them the common name carpet beetles. Looking into the subject on line, we learned that they are omnivorous, and will eat grain products as well, which explains the animal's presence in my friend's pantry.
Under the microscope the larva wasn't easier to identify, but did look pretty interesting:
Close readers of this blog will no doubt remember the dermestid exuviae found clinging to the mouse skeleton I found in my ceiling. Exuvia is the term for the shed exoskeleton that an arthropod leaves behind when it grows or metamorphoses. Usually the word is associated with the collectable shells left behind when a cicada or dragonfly changes from larva to adult.
In times like this, I covet
cottonmanifesto's camera. My little one did an okay job, once I blew the picture up a bit:It was easy enough seeing this image to identify the creature as a dermestid beetle larva. Dermestid beetles (and their larvae) are famous and infamous among people who keep biological specimens. They are useful as defleshers of bone--you can buy little vials full of them to set upon skeletal specimens to clean the bones of skin and dried viscera. Alas, if you keep taxidermy or preserved insects, dermestids are destructors that will reduce your collection to crumbled waste. It was probably these beetles that ruined a chipmunk taxidermy I have, as well as a very expensive wool suit my father in law gave me. Their taste for animal fibers, whether attached to the preserved skin of a mounted chipmunk or woven into a jacket or oriental rug has earned them the common name carpet beetles. Looking into the subject on line, we learned that they are omnivorous, and will eat grain products as well, which explains the animal's presence in my friend's pantry.
Under the microscope the larva wasn't easier to identify, but did look pretty interesting:
Close readers of this blog will no doubt remember the dermestid exuviae found clinging to the mouse skeleton I found in my ceiling. Exuvia is the term for the shed exoskeleton that an arthropod leaves behind when it grows or metamorphoses. Usually the word is associated with the collectable shells left behind when a cicada or dragonfly changes from larva to adult.
