Subject: Creepy armpit bug at 4 am.
Location: Denver, Colorado
October 25, 2012 7:15 am
Hello!
I was woken up at 4 am with this little beast crawling around in my arm pit. It is tiny, about the size of a pencil tip. The front of the budy…with the face and legs is much smaller then the end and light brown. The end of the insect is bulbous, dark brown to black and firm. I grabbed the bug and rolled it around between my fingers and almost just thew it because it was so spherical I didn’t think it was alive. My roommate has called these things crab bugs, and we have been seeing them around the house, but this is the first time I’ve noticed them on me…not the first time noticing them in my bed. They remind me of ticks, or baby black widows (definitely not that).
Anyways…help!
~Chad
ps, if the picture isn’t satisfactory I can try to take more. My camera wasn’t focusing on something so small, too well.
Signature: Chad Brown
Greetings Chad,
Though the human arm pit is a typical habitat for such ectoparasites as crab lice (see BugGuide), the fact that this Spider Beetle was discovered there at 4 AM is more accidental than the result of a meal or favorable habitat. Spider Beetles infest stored foods, not people, and if you are finding them in any quantity, it might be a good idea to check the grain products stored in the pantry. We will now speculate a bit. If you are a young man with a roommate, you might not have the best housekeeping skills, and you might also be eating cookies or crackers in bed. There might even be a forgotten package of Chips Ahoy under the bed that is causing Spider Beetles to proliferate in your bachelor pad.
WTB,
Thank you so much for your email! That’s really good to know, I couldn’t sleep, it was so creepy. My room is pristine because the entire building I live in had a bedbug infestation I don’t know why we keep seeing them. I’ll double check my foods. Thank you so much for providing this fantastic and fun service!