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Tag Archives: Household Pests

Grain Weevil

What is this bug?
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
January 17, 2011 3:06 am
Hi, I found a few hundred in my basement fairly near each other. They are small about 3-8 millimeters each, under a loop they have a rounded body, but the curious thing is the ”tube” coming from the head. They also have wings. Any help on what it is and how to prevent more from appearing besides cleaning very frequently. Thanks for any help.
Signature: Outrunner

grain weevil utah 300x215 Grain Weevil

Grain Weevil

Dear Outrunner,
You have an infestation of Grain Weevils.  You should check stored grain products in your basement, like bargain quantities of bird seed, pet food or rice to track down the source of the infestation.

Posted 18 January 2011 § Weevils ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:
What's That Bug? does not endorse extermination

Smooth Spider Beetle

Almost cute
Location: Queens, NY
January 6, 2011 10:29 pm
Not sure what it was, but it sure wasn’t in a hurry. Spent most of it’s time stuck in a puddle on my bathroom sink. It was about 1-1.5mm long. (color is correct, yes my bathroom sink is that ugly pistachio color). Sorry for blurry pictures, reverse mounting a lens is not great for handheld shooting.
Signature: Ian

spider beetle ian 300x187 Smooth Spider Beetle

Smooth Spider Beetle

Dear Ian,
Try as we might, we are unable to determine why you consider your fine photographs to be blurry.  This is a Smooth Spider Beetle, Gibbium aequinoctiale, and it is a common household intruder that feeds upon stored flour products in the pantry.  If you find more individuals, you may want to inspect the old cookies on the back shelf or the crumbs under the cushions of the couch.  See BugGuide for additional information.

spider beetle ian 2 292x300 Smooth Spider Beetle

Smooth Spider Beetle

Posted 07 January 2011 § Pantry Beetles, Grain Weevils, Spider Beetles, Meal Worms and Carpet Beetles ‡ Comments (1) ° Also tagged:

Silverfish

Some guy by the shower
Location: Chicago IL, USA
January 4, 2011 8:12 pm
Hello, my wife and I just moved into a new apartment and I found this guy hanging out by the shower. He looked alright, not too mean or anything. I’d say he’s about 3/4” in length… and pretty light. dark up by the head, then fading out to silver/off white maybe. Found another one of the same type of bug, almost exactly, in the exact same spot, right along the wall by the shower yesterday. As much as I want to be friends with them, any advice you could give to help them from coming back would be helpful. Judging by the photo, that trim could use some help too. Thank you.
Signature: Jeremy

silverfish jeremy 300x172 Silverfish

Silverfish

Hi Jeremy,
This is a Silverfish, a common household pest that will feed on a wide variety of items in the home.  They are difficult to eradicate.

Hey Daniel/WTB folks,
Thanks a ton for this. You’d think I would have put 2 and 2 together since I specifically called out silver in my description… but no. Great site by the way, I’ve always been interested in insects and probably spent a good hour reading through 12 pages today at work just for fun.
Thanks again!

Posted 04 January 2011 § Silverfish, Bristletails and Firebrats ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:
What's That Bug? does not endorse extermination

Silverfish

What the Bugg
Location: South western Ontario, Canada
January 4, 2011 8:28 pm
Hello,
I have been seeing this bug in may apartment lately and he is very fast.This time i managed to catch one and get these pictures. i tend to see them in the bathroom more often then other rooms. I am hoping you guys can help me figure out what he is. I live in southern Ontario if that helps! If you have any questions or want further pictures i have tons. Hoping you can help!
thanks in advance.
Signature: Ashley

silverfish ashley 300x228 Silverfish

Silverfish

Hi Ashley,
This common household intruder is a Silverfish, a nocturnal, omnivorous forager that is generally found in dark damp places like under the sink.  It will feed on a wide variety of household items including the starch on wallpaper and book bindings.  Once they are established, they can be very difficult to eradicate.

Posted 04 January 2011 § Silverfish, Bristletails and Firebrats ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

What Came in on the Christmas Tree? Giant Conifer Aphids

Lots of bugs on Christmas tree
Location: Dallas, Texas – but could have been imported!
January 3, 2011 6:31 pm
Hi bugman! I was very sad that my husband wanted me to take down the Christmas tree. But now I am very glad he did! As we were removing ornaments and lights, we discovered the tree was positively CRAWLING with these bugs. We threw the tree over our balcony so as not to drag it through the house, and vacuumed thoroughly, just in case. Sorry for the blurry photo – we were in a hurry to take the image and get it out of the house.
That is a close up of the trunk of the tree in one spot, but it was like that everywhere. For scale, the needles remaining on our floor are all about 3/4 inch long, so I assume that’s a similar length to the ones in the photo. The bugs were quite small.
Do you know what kind of bugs they are? My mom suggested they are some kind of stink bug, but the back legs are much longer than any stink bug I’ve seen. We are in Dallas, TX, but the tree could have been shipped in from somewhere (we got it at Home Depot).
Signature: Deana in Texas

giant conifer aphids deana 300x206 What Came in on the Christmas Tree? Giant Conifer Aphids

Giant Conifer Aphids

Hi Deana,
You have Giant Conifer Aphids in the genus Cinara (see BugGuide for more information), and they are commonly brought into the house with a Christmas tree.  As the tree begins to dry out, they will flee the tree.  They will not harm your home or you or your pets, but they can be an annoyance.  Your mom is quite astute.  Stink Bugs and Aphids are in the same insect order, Hemiptera, and this order is characterized by sucking mouth parts and includes Cicadas and all True Bugs including Assassin Bugs, Bed Bugs and Toe-Biters.

Thanks so much for the information! I’m glad to know they aren’t really harmful to our two cats and dog or to our home.
In the future, is there something we can look for when choosing a tree so that we don’t have this problem again?  We didn’t see the bugs when we brought it home (and I would think we would have noticed when holding the trunk of the tree to carry it in the house or put it into the stand) so I suppose they were either just eggs at the time or perhaps living -inside- the tree somewhere. I read that they do have some kind of secretion, also – is that something we can look for on the tree in order to prevent this for future holidays?
Or is this just one of the risks associated with purchasing a live tree?
Thanks again,
Deana

Aphids often reproduce by live birth, so if there were a few individuals on the tree when you purchased it, they escaped notice.  If the tree was up for a few weeks, the number of individuals might have increased exponentially, producing the infestation you discovered upon undressing the tree.  Interestingly, in years past, there have been other insect sightings associated with a live Christmas tree.  One year we received about five letters of Preying Mantids hatching from oothica or egg cases, but we received none of those this year.

Posted 03 January 2011 § Aphids, Scale Insects, Leafhoppers, and Tree Hoppers ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Spider Beetle

Small red bug
Location: Silver Spring, MD
December 1, 2010 11:03 pm
Hello, thank you for helping me identify this guy. It is the second one I have found. I live in Maryland near DC in an apartment building. I the first one crawling across my wooden floor at a slow pace. This is the second one (found in my kitchen in a large bowl I don’t use).
I saw the first one in May and this one just last week (Late November). I brought it into work and took pictures under the microscope since it is only about 2-3 mm.
Upon first seeing it I thought it was some sort of spider, but then realized it only has 6 legs.
Signature: Thank you for your help!

spider beetle magnified 300x224 Spider Beetle

Spider Beetle

Spider Beetles like the one in your photograph are one of the numerous species of beetles that will infest stored food.  You should clean out the pantry.

Posted 01 January 2011 § Pantry Beetles, Grain Weevils, Spider Beetles, Meal Worms and Carpet Beetles ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Mites

Mites under a microscope!
Location: Western NC
December 2, 2010 8:52 am
An individual at my school came in yesterday with a hair mousse bottle almost completely encrusted with these little fellows. According to her, they’re all over her electronics and hair care products, but no where else.
She thinks they may have come in on a used rug or carpet one of her family members recently purchased, but cannot be certain. Their population seems to have exploded overnight.
I tried to aim my little camera into the ocular to take a photo, but couldn’t focus things properly. The photo does hive an outline of the creatures though. I forget the magnification setting I had selected, but I *think* it was 250x. The mites could only be visibly discerned as tiny white specks.
Any ID help is appreciated.
Signature: Jacob

mites jacob 300x225 Mites

Mites

Dear Jacob,
Even with your wonderful photo, we do not feel qualified enough to provide an identification for you on these Mites, but perhaps one of our readers will supply an identification.

Posted 01 January 2011 § Mites ‡ Comments (1) ° Also tagged:

Drugstore Beetle probably

Black bug in my pantry
Location: Gilbert, AZ
December 4, 2010 4:42 pm
We found these little black bugs in our pantry. They appeared to have eaten rice in a box of uncle ben’s wild rice and it apparently was deadly, because most of them were dead. We live in Gilbert AZ, which is just SE of Phoenix. Thanks.
Signature: Pete

drugstore beetle pete 300x205 Drugstore Beetle probably

Drugstore Beetle, we believe

Dear Pete,
There are numerous small and unrelated beetles that will infest stored foods in the Pantry, and we unscientifically categorize them as Pantry Beetles.  Some are quite difficult to tell apart.  We believe this is a Drugstore Beetle, Stegobium paniceum, which you may read about on BugGuide.

drugstore beetle pete scale 300x184 Drugstore Beetle probably

Drugstore Beetle to scale

Posted 01 January 2011 § Pantry Beetles, Grain Weevils, Spider Beetles, Meal Worms and Carpet Beetles ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

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