Museum beetle
The museum beetle is a tiny, round beetle with dark wing cases sprinkled with bright spots. The grown-up beetle lives outside on flowers. Its hairy little larvae are the troublemakers: they nibble dry skin and fur, even on stuffed animals in museums.
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Fun facts
Its larvae can damage stuffed polar bears and big cats in museums. That is how it got its name.
The larva is yellowish and hairy and only about 4.5 millimetres long.
A grown-up beetle lives only one or two weeks.
The mother lays about forty eggs in hidden places like carpets, cracks in the floor or wool, so her babies have food.
Most asked questions about Museum beetle
?Why is it called the museum beetle?
Because its larvae eat the skin and fur of stuffed animals in museums.
?Is the museum beetle harmful?
Not to people, but its larvae can damage wool, fur and museum collections.
?How big is the museum beetle?
Only 2 to 4 millimetres, about as big as a sesame seed.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Anthrenus museorum
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Dermestidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Dermestidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Anthrenus museorum (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 URSchmidt. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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