Species Anthrenus flavipes - Furniture Carpet Beetle

=A. vorax

Anthrenus flavipes LeConte 1854

the common name refers to its habit of attacking the animal-hair packing of stuffed furniture (common practice in the early 1900s)

2 sspp. (one cosmopolitan, another in Middle East)

2-3.5 mm(1)

Dorsal surface with scales of two colours: white and yellowish brown. White scales on pronotum on each side condensed in a spot near anteriour angles and two (often confluent) patches in the posteriour half; white scales may be found on the posteriour margin also, but not forming a distinct prescutellar spot. Elytra with several white spots (usually partly merging): one on base near, but not touching, scutellum, the remaining arranged into three transverse bands.

Important characters apart from colour: Eyes with inner frontal margin distinctly notched (unlike in verbasci), antennae 11-segmented with 3-segmented club.

Sometimes confused with A. verbasci, in which the colour pattern is a little different, and eyes not notched.

Det. Andreas Herrmann, 2020

adventive: e. US, UT - Map (1)(2) and Europe(3), probably native to the Oriental Region, now almost cosmopolitan (mostly in subtropical climates)

in modern households, larvae feed on a variety of organic substrates, incl. wool, silk, fur, feathers, and dry animal material (larvae will not fully develop if fed on pure wool unless it is impregnated with some other animal product); larvae will feed on book bindings, chew holes in paper, and are attracted to and feed on dead animals(1)

first detected in NA in the US (1911) in horsehair-stuffed upholstered furniture imported from Russia(1); spread to Europe much later (first detected 1955)(3)

Dermestidae.com - Andreas Herrmann