Interaction With Humans
The larvae of A. verbasci is a common household pest. Adult beetles usually lay their eggs in air ducts, in closets, under furniture, or under baseboards. Once hatched and until they pupate into adults, the larvae hide in dark, undisturbed areas and feed on organic material. The larvae are thus responsible for the damage of various items, such as furniture, clothing, blankets, furs, and carpets. Collections of specimens, especially of insects, are also vulnerable to attack, making A. verbasci a common pest in museums. Infestations can be prevented by regular vacuum cleaning, dry cleaning or airing clothing outside, placing naphthalene balls in closets, and removing abandoned bird and insect nests attached to the building. Signs of an infestation include the presence of damaged articles, molted larval skins in dark areas, and an abundance of adult beetles near windows. Deterring or killing A. verbasci can be accomplished using insecticides, oxygen deprivation, freezing, and pheromone and scent traps.
Read more about this topic: Varied Carpet Beetle
Famous quotes containing the words interaction with, interaction and/or humans:
“Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)