Bug card No. 1773 of 4,939

Fringed larder beetle

Dermestes frischii

Eats: Leftovers and dead things BeetlesHouses and farms6 legs

The fringed larder beetle is a small, oval beetle, black or dark brown. Along the sides of its front part it has a fringe of yellowish-white hairs. It likes dried meat and fish, which is why it is called a larder beetle.

Lives in

Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, often where dried food is kept

Length

6 to 9.5 mm (0.24 to 0.37 in)

Top speed

about 0.4 km/h (0.25 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

It does not bite or sting people. It can spoil stored food, so grown-ups keep it out of the pantry.

What does it eat?

It eats dried animal things, like dried meat, dried fish, cheese, fur and leather. Its hairy larvae eat the same food.

Photo of Fringed larder beetle — Picture by Simon Hinkley & Ken Walker, Museum Victoria. CC BY 3.0 au, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

small enough to sit on your fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 9 seconds

How big is Fringed larder beetle compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

Fringed larder beetle about 0.4 km/h (0.25 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

A mother beetle can lay from 40 to more than 400 eggs in two months.

Its larvae are dark and hairy, with a pale stripe down the back and two little horns at the end of the body.

The larvae can bore holes into wood, cork and even plaster when they look for a safe place to turn into adults.

Its feelers end in a little club made of the last three segments.

Warmth makes it grow up faster. At 26 °C it becomes an adult quicker than at 23 °C.

you asked

Most asked questions about Fringed larder beetle

?What does the fringed larder beetle eat?

Dried animal food like meat, fish and cheese, and also fur and leather.

?How big is the fringed larder beetle?

The adult beetle is 6 to 9.5 millimetres long.

?Is the fringed larder beetle harmful?

It does not hurt people, but it can spoil stored food and damage things like leather and wood.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Dermestes frischii
Named by: Kugelann, 1792
Group: Beetles
Family: Dermestidae
Classification: Insecta > Coleoptera > Dermestidae
Lives on: Europe, Asia, Africa, North America

Where the facts come from

Dermestes frischii (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by Simon Hinkley & Ken Walker, Museum Victoria. CC BY 3.0 au, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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