Carpet Beetle

Varied Carpet Beetles (Anthrenus verbasci) are approximately 1.8-3.2mm in size.
Females do not always lay their eggs on larval food material. The eggs hatch in 17-18 days. Development time from egg to adult usually requires 249-354 days at room temperature, but may take as long as 2-3 years depending upon temperature and food. Adult males live 13-28 days whereas females live 14-144 days. Varied carpet beetle larva feed on a wide variety of animal and plant products. Animal origin materials include woolens, carpets, furs, hides, feathers, horns, bones, hair, silk, fish meal, insect pupae and dead insects. Plant origin materials include meal, corn, cacao and cereals etc. Their favored foods are insects and spiders, which makes them a major pest of museum collections. On fabrics the larva tend to surface graze but are quite capable of making small or large irregular holes.