Life Cycle Woolly Bear Carpet Beetle

As is so often the case it is the larva that does all the damage.

Life cycle woolly bear carpet beetle. These are mostly brown with white or yellow markings and are covered in short bristly hairs hence their well known woolly bear moniker. It grows up to 5 mm in length. 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. The larvae known as woolly bears of these small oval beetles have outstripped the clothes moths as the major british textile pest.

The life cycle of a carpet beetle. The life cycle of a carpet beetle ranges from two months to several years in length. You will often see the adult form between april and june and then have the main problems with the larvae in october. The variegated carpet beetle is 2 to 4mm long like a small mottled brown grey and cream ladybird.

It develops from its own larvae by taking as many as three years. The carpet beetle is quite a resilient creature. In total the life cycle for the beetle is around a year. This totally depends on the.

The larvae of carpet beetles are referred to as woolly bears. Verbasci was also the first insect to be shown to have an. In its larvae form it can survive starvation for several months. The related fur beetle is black with one spot on each wing case and there is a rarer black carpet beetle.

Carpet beetles are oval shaped and difficult to spot as they are only 2 to 4mm long.