The varied carpet beetle (Anthrenus verbasci) is a 3 mm–long beetle belonging to the family Dermestidae
This beetle can be a serious household pest and a pest in natural history museums, where it can damage many biological specimens. While adults are pollen grazers, larvae feed on natural fibers and can damage carpets, furniture, clothing and insects collections.
The larval form is known as a woolly bear, a name it shares with the larvae of Arctia caja and many other moths of the family Arctiidae.
A. verbasci was the first insect to be shown to have an annual circadian rhythm and to date remains a classic example of circannual cycles in animals.
Read more about Varied Carpet Beetle: Identification, Distribution, Interaction With Humans
Famous quotes containing the words varied, carpet and/or beetle:
“The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“A wind has started a little whirlpool
of sand where the carpet ought to be,
and shells lie
by the preposterous feet
of that woman who frets me, annihilates me,
O she will kill me yet.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)