Beetles 



263 



produced annually in the latitude of Washington. The insect here hiber- 

 nates in the adult state. 



The largest and most familiar of the outdoor Cucujids is a very flat 

 bright-red species, Cucujus flavipes (PI. II, Fig. 11), about half an inch 

 long, with black eyes and antenna and the legs with dark tibiae and feet. 



The Dermestidas constitute only a small family of forty or more North 

 American species representing twelve genera, but one which nevertheless 

 is of unusual interest and importance to entomologists, for to this family 

 belong those insects which eat entomological collections. A depraved taste, 

 but one which causes almost constant anxiety and occasional serious 

 discouragement on the part of the industrious collector. Dermestids 

 are not the bane of collectors and museum curators alone, as larder-beetles, 

 "buffalo-moths," and carpet-beetles, various species of this family, help 

 make life a burden to the housewife. 



.\11 of the Dermestidae are small, oval, and plump-bodied, the largest 

 species being about ^ inch long, and most of them are covered with small 

 scales, which give them their rather varied colors and markings. The beetles 

 themselves mostly feed on pollen, but come into houses to deposit their eggs. 

 From the eggs hatch soft-bodied little grubs thickly covered with hairs, 

 often very long (Figs. 361 and 362). These larva; are the real pests of house- 



fj-'^J'V;* 



Fig. 361. 

 -Carpet-beetle or 



Fig. 362. 

 buffalo-moth," Anlhrenus scrophularid, larva and adult. 



(.\ftcr Howard 



Fio. 361 



(After Howard and Marlatt; murh enlarged.) 

 Fig. 362. — Black carpet-beetle, Attageitus piceus, larva and adult 

 and Marlatt; enlarged.) 



hold and museum: they feed industriously on dried insect specimens, 

 stuffed birds and mammals, woolen carpets, furs, feathers, or on meat and 

 cheese (depending on the particular habits of the various species) until full- 

 grown. Then they crawl into a crack or hide in the body of a museum 

 specimen and pupate within the larval cuticle, which serves as a sort of thin 

 hairy protecting shell. 



The usual museum pests are two species, A. varius and A. museorum, of 

 the genus Anthrenus. The adult beetles are tiny, broadly oval, very conve.x, 

 with the black body covered above with scales some of which are yellowish 



