280 days of Urbpandemonium #77

[urbpan]

This hairy beast is just a baby. If it makes it to fully grown--and why wouldn't it, it has few predators and is well defended with prickly setae--it will metamorphose into a short blackish beetle with a tawny belt across its back. Both as an adult beetle and as an active larva, the larder beetle Dermestes lardarius* feeds on durable organic matter. This individual was found with many close relatives feeding on the mummy of long-dead mouse. Unlike the relative (Anthrenus verbasci) I covered earlier, larder beetles are almost always encountered indoors, the environment which provides shelter and food to them around the globe.


Aw look at the fuzzy little belly!

* "Skin eater in the larder"

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

I've never seen anything like that. Although if I did I would probably assume it was a ball of fluff or some of my hair mixed with carpet dust, because that's what it looks like.