Need help identifying this Bug!!!!

[Oswoc]

Hi guys,
Since taking up hobby, and introducing 1 tarantulas into my house, along side live food in the form of 'silent crickets', waxworms and flightless fruit flies, I've noticed the occasional bug. Looks like a brown ladybird, moves fairly slow. I worry its a cockroach or something I hijacked a lift from a live food farm into my box of crickets, and has since escaped!?

Pictures attached. Its small, about 3-5mm across.

 

[Snailientologist]

Varied carpet beetle?

 

[The Snark]

If the carpet beetle it's not a problem and will die soon. The larvae on the other hand are pests that go munching on just about any organic material.
I'm wondering if the larvae could be used as industrial vacuum alternatives to springtails. They eat anything that isn't moving including feces and exoskeletons but aren't predatorial..But precautions need to be taken they can't escape and discover, say, your priceless Persian carpet.

 

[Oswoc]

Wow! Thanks so much for your input.

Strange, I've never seen these before since getting my new pets...
We hoover every day, and always clean up, especially as we have young kids crawling around.

Strange. Any tips on how to get rid of them?
Not too fussed if there's a handful of them roaming about... kinda cute, and we aren't precious about our carpets, they're cheap, and often have spilt drinks on from the kids!

Thanks again

 

[jc55]

it does not look like a baby roach as its antenna are small and a roaches antenna are twice the size of its body.

 

[Matts inverts]

I would clean all carpet and food because even if they are harmless sometimes, other times they can be pests. Try to catch them so they don’t escape if you see more.

 

[The Snark]

Strange, I've never seen these before since getting my new pets...

Once they become adults they only live a couple of weeks. Mate, lay eggs and die. They are very reclusive, like bed bugs. On the other paw, the larval stage lasts for months.

 

[Dry Desert]

Hi guys,
Since taking up hobby, and introducing 1 tarantulas into my house, along side live food in the form of 'silent crickets', waxworms and flightless fruit flies, I've noticed the occasional bug. Looks like a brown ladybird, moves fairly slow. I worry its a cockroach or something I hijacked a lift from a live food farm into my box of crickets, and has since escaped!?

Pictures attached. Its small, about 3-5mm across. View attachment 379375

I think you'll find that's a Dermestid beetle. The larvae are those catapiller things that are often found crawling around in your cricket tub, must have escaped when you were feeding crickets and pupated into your beetle. I also believe they are meat eaters !!!.

 

[Matts inverts]

That is not a dermestid beetle. The dermestids are black or gray and the carpets are lighter colored with spots

 

[RoachCoach]

Get some caulk and foam strips and start sealing off gaps in your housing. Like others have said, just an innocuous beetle.

 

[The Snark]

Get some caulk and foam strips and start sealing off gaps in your housing.

I think that is the major beetch about these critters. Adults aren't an issue but the larvae are acrobats and roam everywhere. Really good at getting into everything that isn't hermetically sealed. A nightmare scenario if you own silks.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

That is not a dermestid beetle. The dermestids are black or gray and the carpets are lighter colored with spots

Carpet beetles are dermestids. Dermestid refers to any of the Dermestidae family, with includes "skin", "larder", and "carpet" beetles, among other things.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

I think that is the major beetch about these critters. Adults aren't an issue but the larvae are acrobats and roam everywhere. Really good at getting into everything that isn't hermetically sealed. A nightmare scenario if you own silks.

They'll also destroy wool, cotton, and any other natural fibre if you allow an infestation to persist. Hurray!

 

[Matts inverts]

Sorry, I meant it was more specific a carpet beetle. When people say dermestid, people usually mean the black ones that eat dead animals to the bone

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

Sorry, I meant it was more specific a carpet beetle. When people say dermestid, people usually mean the black ones that eat dead animals to the bone

All of the Dermestidae are happy to eat any dead organic tissue. The ones they use in museums are particularly efficient with dried animal flesh, but the whole family is good at eating dead stuff.

 

[The Snark]

They'll also destroy wool, cotton, and

I was barely more than a rug rat. I remember visiting some family friend's house and my mother poking an overstuffed chair and remarking, "Your chair is crunchy". The excitement for me was the man of the house taking the chair into the back yard and setting it on fire. Several hundred or maybe thousanda of generations of those bugs had made the cotton padding their home.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

I was barely more than a rug rat. I remember visiting some family friend's house and my mother poking an overstuffed chair and remarking, "Your chair is crunchy". The excitement for me was the man of the house taking the chair into the back yard and setting it on fire. Several hundred or maybe thousanda of generations of those bugs had made the cotton padding their home.

Oh yikes. I became aware of dermestids as a household pest when I lived in a converted clothing warehouse. I had to toss out all the cat's nice wool beds, launder everything I owned, and abandon several other soft goods when I moved.

 

[The Snark]

Another odd one. My mother brought a lot of furniture with her from China. There had been comments for a couple of years I guess of odd faint noises. Then some friend of the family was present, heard the noise and went sleuthing. He reported a storage chest was ticking. It was taken out into the yard, sadly disassembled as it was made mostly of hand carved black teak, and ultimately set on fire. Some bizarre oriental bugs had made it their home. Eating teak? I'm not sure why they didn't try to fumigate it, or why only that chest and none of the other furniture.

 

[RoachCoach]

I was barely more than a rug rat. I remember visiting some family friend's house and my mother poking an overstuffed chair and remarking, "Your chair is crunchy". The excitement for me was the man of the house taking the chair into the back yard and setting it on fire. Several hundred or maybe thousanda of generations of those bugs had made the cotton padding their home.

What, you are too good for the "crunchy" chairs?
Back in my day all we had was crunchy chairs.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

What, you are too good for the "crunchy" chairs?
Back in my day all we had was crunchy chairs.

"I like my chairs like I like my granola"