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Sticker of Two-spotted carpet-beetle
Bug card No. 4497 of 4,939

Two-spotted carpet-beetle

Attagenus pellio

The two-spotted carpet beetle is a tiny, oval, dark beetle with two little patches of white hair on its back. It likes to live in houses. Its hairy babies can nibble holes in fur, wool and other things we keep at home.

Lives in
Houses and birds' nests in many parts of the world
Length
4 to 6 mm (0.16 to 0.24 in)
Top speed
about 0.32 km/h (0.2 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people, but it can damage clothes, carpets and food.
What does it eat?
Its babies eat furs, skins, wool, cloth and stored grain, and bits of fluff that gather in floor cracks.
For real!Photo of Two-spotted carpet-beetle
Picture by Udo Schmidt from Deutschland. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Two-spotted carpet-beetle about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 11 seconds

How big is Two-spotted carpet-beetle compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its babies are hairy and honey coloured and are sometimes called woolly bears.

2

The mothers often lay eggs in sparrow nests under the roof, and from there the beetles move into houses.

3

Mouse nests can be a home and a pantry for these beetles too.

you asked

Most asked questions about Two-spotted carpet-beetle

?Is the carpet beetle dangerous?

No. It does not hurt people, but its babies can damage wool, furs and stored food.

?How big is the two-spotted carpet beetle?

Only about 4 to 6 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Attagenus pellio
Named by
Linnaeus, 1758
Group
Beetles
Family
Dermestidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Dermestidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, North America
Also known as
Fur beetle, Carpet beetle

Where the facts come from

  1. Attagenus pellio (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Udo Schmidt from Deutschland. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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