urbpan: (dandelion)
urbpan ([personal profile] urbpan) wrote2015-06-25 06:52 pm

280 days of Urbpandemonium #77

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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.

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Aw look at the fuzzy little belly!

* "Skin eater in the larder"

[identity profile] kryptyd.livejournal.com 2015-06-26 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
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.