What Does A Carpet Beetle Look Like?

Growing up to 1/8 of an inch in length, carpet beetles can have dark coloring or striped shells with black, yellow, orange, or white coloring. Because of their flat, oval-shaped bodies, many carpet beetles can often get mistaken for cockroaches.

However, cockroaches don't have the striped shells that carpet beetles do and are usually much larger, with some roaches growing over two inches long. If you need to differentiate the two pests, look for a striped shell and the size of the bug.

Besides their physical appearance, here are a couple of other interesting facts about carpet beetles:

• While adult carpet beetles like to feed on nectar and pollen, young larvae will eat the natural fibers in your carpet, like wool, leather, silk, and sometimes even pet hair.
• Carpet beetles aren't known to bite, but they can sometimes make you sick by contaminating the food in your home.
• While carpet beetle larvae are the biggest concern for eating your carpet, adult carpet beetles can still be troublesome if they ravage your garden.
• Carpet beetles will infest just about any room in your house, but they're especially prevalent in rooms that have carpet or other materials for them to feed on.
• Are carpet beetles bad? Yes, carpet beetles can be extremely destructive, especially if the infestation goes unchecked for long enough.

How To Tell If There Are Carpet Beetle Larvae In Your Home

Adult carpet beetles tend to have dark coloring, but their eggs have a white, creamy coloring and measure less than a millimeter in length. Adult carpet beetles can lay up to a hundred eggs at once. While they are tiny, you may notice clumps of them in your carpets or on other fabric items in your home. Depending on the conditions, carpet beetle eggs can hatch as soon as ten days after being laid or in as long as a month. 

When the eggs hatch into larvae, the larvae, sometimes called "wooly bears" are actually larger than the adult beetles. They tend to have brown or black coloring, but their most recognizable feature is the dark hair covering their bodies. How long do carpet beetles live? This entire lifespan from egg to larvae to adult can take anywhere from two to six weeks. It may be just a little over a month, but carpet beetles can cause a lot of damage in their relatively short lifespan.