Subject: strange insect
Location: Chicago, IL
February 3, 2014 11:13 pm
Hi, I found an insect on a blanket the other day. I’ve never seen it in my house before. It’s head looks like the head of an ant and it has these two small prongs at the end of it’s body like an earwig. It also has these two distinctive black markings, on what I think is it’s thorax, that resemble lips.
It wouldn’t stay still for photos so I laid down some masking tape and it walked right onto it, which held it long enough for me to take pictures. I would say it’s about 4 or 5 mm long. From the naked eye it looks kind of like a worm. The pictures I provided are taken with 80-100x magnification. Anyway, I hope that’s enough information for identification. Thank you for your time!
Signature: Jon
Hi Jon,
Other than suspecting that this is some type of larva, we are not certain of its identity. We do not believe it is a beetle larva, but again, we are not certain. We will post your high quality images in the hopes that one of our readers will be able to provide us with an identification. We are also going to contact Eric Eaton to get his opinion.
Hi, Daniel:
I strongly suspect a beetle larva, but not sure which one. Likely some kind of “stored product pest.” Folks on Bugguide might be more helpful…..
Eric
