Pests from A to Z
Moths
Brown House Moth
The commonest of the so-called clothes moths, with characteristic golden-bronze wings, flecked with black, folded flat along its back. The adult is about 8mm long and prefers to run rather than fly.
The related White Shouldered House Moth has mottled wings with a white head and “shoulders” where the wings join the body. Eggs are attached to fabric on which grubs will feed. The larvae are creamy-white caterpillars with brown heads.
They grow up to 18mm long, feeding on wool, hair, fur, feathers, cork or debris from food such as dried fruit or cereals, and are common scavengers in old birds’ nests, from which they may enter buildings.
The caterpillars spin silken cocoons in which they pupate. The life cycle takes several months to complete. Only the larval stage feeds, as a general scavenger as well as a textile pest.
Clothes Moths
There are several species of clothes moths, all of them characterised by folding their wings tent-wise along their backs. The adult Common Clothes Moth is 6 to 7mm long with pale, plain golden-buff wings fringed with hair. The rarer Case-Bearing Clothes Moth, is duller and has three dark brown spots on each of its wings. The adults do no damage when feeding.
It is the larvae which hatch from the sticky eggs that eat wool, hair, fur or feathers – with a preference for blankets, wool carpets, wool garments or upholstery that have been soiled with perspiration or food. The grubs are white caterpillars with golden-brown heads, which spin a hiding place of characteristic loose silk webbing, beneath which they feed.
They make irregular holes in textile fabrics and pupate as silken cocoons. The Case Bearing Clothes Moth grub produces an open ended cylindrical case of silk as it feeds, and attaches fibres of its food material to this in order to camouflage itself.
Flour Moths
Moths whose grubs feed on stored food – especially cereals, chocolate, cocoa,dried fruit, nuts and any sort of flour product.
Adults are mottled grey and brown. 10-15mm long. Larvae are dirty white with brown heads and grow up to 12-15mm long, spinning a light, matted webbing as they feed.
Both grubs and adults, therefore, can be pests in the kitchen, to which they may be introduced from shop or mill.
House Moths
Textile pests and scavengers whose grubs eat natural fabrics. Similar to Clothes Moths.
White Shoulder House Moth
See Brown House Moth
