What is A Stored Product Pest? Sometimes pests arrive in our homes by way of the many products we purchase at stores. Sometimes egs or larvae get into the factory or plant and we suddenly have a problem. If you do find a product that is contaminated with stored product pests please take it back to the grocer so they can refund you and look and remove any more problems with contminated products.
Here is a list of common stored product pests here in North America.
Indian Meal Moth
1) Case-bearing moth & larva
2) Drugstore beetle
3) Clothes moth
4) Sawtoothed grain beetle
5) Silverfish-
Silverfish consume matter that contains polysaccharides, such as starches and dextrin in adhesives.These include glue, book bindings, plaster, some paints, paper,photos, sugar, coffee, hair, carpet, clothing and dandruff. Silverfish can also cause damage to tapestries. Other substances that may be eaten include cotton, linen, silk, synthetic fibres and dead insects or even its own exuvia (moulted exoskeleton). During famine, a silverfish may even attack leatherware and synthetic fabrics. Silverfish can live for a year or more without eating.
Silverfish are considered a household pest, due to their consumption and destruction of property.Although they are responsible for the contamination of food and other types of damage, they do not transmit disease.
Earwigs, house centipedes and spiders are known to be predators of silverfish.
6) Confused flour beetle
7) Rice weevil- Adult rice weevils and granary weevils (of the family Curculionidae) feed on the outside of grain of grain kernels, while the white legless larvae feed and develop inside the kernels
Spider beetle
9) Yellow meal worm
10) Fur beetle
11) Indian meal moth
Notice how small a drug store beetle is?
12) Varied carpet beetle- (of the family Dermistidae) prefer food of animal origin, with larval stages feeding on carpets, clothing, furniture or other household items made from animal products.
13) house cricket
14) Furniture beetle
15) Larder beetle
16) Lesser grain borer
17) Maize weevil
18) Bran Bugs is just another name for the saw toothed grain beetle, confused red flour beetle and red flour beetle. First sign of an infestation are small reddish brown beetles in and around grain products.
All stored items should be searched for signs of infestation. Remembering that not only opened products are vulnerable, but also products that are not yet opened
