Search Results for: White-shouldered house moth with its wings open

Ants

…Alternatively, you can coat the anthill {1with insect powder. Pharaoh ant, Monomorium pharaonis is a quite small, only 2 mm long, light yellowish ant. It is originally a tropical ant, and in Denmark, it is entirely dependent on heated buildings. The Pharaoh ant can be troublesome in private households, where it seeks out foods. These tiny ants will seek out wounds, if the opportunity presents itself, and it can be affect bedridden people. Pharaoh…

Prevention

…can be excluded by a so-called air curtain. This involves setting up a current of air through which the insects cannot pass, Practically speaking, all insects and mites thrive best in places with a high humidity and relatively high temperature. Dry, cool storage of foodstuffs and cleaning without the excessive use of water are therefore indicated….

Houses as animals habitats

…ssful on entering a man-made habitat. Some of the species concerned have been associated with human habitations for thousands of years, and during this long period of time, which for insects would involve thousands of generations, they have had plenty of opportunity to evolve new types, with habits and forms that differ considerably from the original ancestral forms. The insect and other invertebrate pests that live indoors must not therefore be r…

Transmission of infectious diseases

…single-celled micro-organisms and eggs of parasitic worms that is found in house flies and cockroaches have isolated several of the types that can cause serious diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, polio and tuberculosis. Micro-organisms exist on the outside of the insects, on hair and mouth etc., but here they normally only survive a few hours. House flies, cockroaches and ants may also obtain micro-organisms when they eat. In the intestines of t…

Housefly

…tensely irritating when they occur in swarms, settling on man and animals. House fly pupa Sometimes various tiny invertebrates can be found hanging on to the legs and body of a housefly. These may be mites of various kinds, which in this way are trans- ported from place to place by the m’bre mobile flies, or they may be false scorpions (p. 66). In all cases these are species which live in or on the manure where the flies develop, and they only rel…

Cat flea, dog flea

…ave no choice but to move to people. In such cases one may comfort oneself with the fact that cat and dog fleas cannot breed without their principal host, and so the infestation will die out on its own. On the other hand, they can live for months on a diet of human blood, so it needs an unusual amount of patience to wait until the fleas die of old age. Fleas can be removed from domestic animals, either by washing or by treating them with an insect…

Chlorophorus annularis

…r timber in the house….

Golden spider beetle

…Golden spider beetle (Latin: Niptus hololeucus) In this beetle the body is closely beset with yellow hairs. It can feed on almost anything and when it appears in a house, the source of infection may be dead chicks in a bird’s nest or little collections of seeds in the loft. Now and again this beetle has been recorded as a pest of textiles….

Beech marten

…lly move off if continually disturbed over a period. Once they have been driven away their means of access must be blocked, otherwise new ones will quickly move in. Beech martens are very skilful climbers, and they can get through gaps with a diameter of only 6 cm. They often find their way up to the roof by using espalier fruit trees, drainpipes or even large trees growing close to the house. Their route can sometimes be traced by the tracks or f…

Index

…an agree that a flock of pigeons flying around the church tower… Indian meal moths Indian meal moths are also called chocolate moths… Clothes moths Clothes moths belong to man’s oldest companions. In……

Larder beetle

…a refrigerator or a deep freeze it is no longer a serious pest in private households. It sometimes multiplies rapidly in dried cat and dog foods, and may be very destructive in factories working with dried fish or hides. The larvae are fully grown about a month after hatching and many then move away to find a suitable place for pupation. They sometimes gnaw tunnels in timber (p. 148) or plaster, but also into many other materials, and when this h…

Springtails

…on dunghills and on the surface of lakes and pools. They often wander into houses for no apparent reason, either from compost, from decaying leaves in the gutters or from mossy roofs. Springtail If they survive indoors in a house this suggests that it is too damp, as for example in some cellars. In rooms that are other- wise dry, springtails sometimes find suit- able living conditions behind cupboards standing against damp external walls. They cau…

Ametastegia glabrata

…they try elsewhere. When they attack wooden articles in the house they may become a nuisance. Very often they give up gnawing and try elsewhere, leaving a number of half-finished holes in the timber (see p. 117). It is very often new houses that are subjected to the attacks of these otherwise completely harmless insects. This may be due to the fact that the gardens have not yet been cultivated so that the ground is covered with the various weeds o…

Pests in real estate

…been attacked by pests, it is therefore important to familiarize yourself with the rules for your situation. By this, you can ensure to act correctly and place yourself in the best possible position. Pests in rental properties If serious pest infestation is found in rental properties, it is the landlord’s duty to remove the pests according to the tenancy law. The removal must take place without any cost to the tenants. A landlord can be an associ…

Longhorn beetles

…has powerful, dark jaws. The females lay their eggs in bark crevices or splits in the timber, and the larvae feed on the wood. Their development may take several years. When fully grown each larva prepares an enlarged pupal chamber, often lined with coarse wood fibres, in which it pupates and later metamorphoses to the adult beetle. The different species vary widely in their choice of timber. Some can thrive only in hardwood, others exclusively in…

Forest flies

…laws. At first sight they do not look very much like flies. They are specialised for living on mammals or birds, where they crawl around in the fur or among the feathers and suck blood. The proboscis is somewhat like that of a stable fly.. The larvae develop within the female’s body and pupate immediately they are released by the female. Two of the species which live on birds may wander into houses from the nests. These are Crataerina pallida and…

Patchwork leafcutter

…(Latin: Megachile centuncularis) Patchwork leafcutter This bee sometimes builds in the woodwork of houses. Patchwork leafcutter on flower visit in blue cornflower It lines the cells with regular oval pieces of leaf which it cuts from plants with smooth leaves, sometimes roses….

Grey worm

…reatures’. Earthworms are important because their burrows provide the soil with ventilation and drainage, and also because as they eat their way through the soil they mix the mineral components from the subsoil with the organic matter near the surface. Earthworms only occur indoors as chance visitors. In certain cases they may appear in the lavatory pan, where they are sometimes erroneously thought to be intestinal worms, but they can easily be di…

Animals in foods

…und in the grave of Tutankhamun. Animal pests of stored products are still with us. Indeed it has been estimated that about 15 per cent of all stored foodstuffs never reach human mouths, but end up in the bodies of insects or rodents. It is possible to distinguish between two types of pest that attack stored products. First, there are those that only visit foods when they are hungry, but which otherwise live and breed in cracks and crevices and si…

Mason bee

…nelling, in furniture or even in a key-hole, provided there is constant access to the outside world. Apart from the fact that it may sometimes block a lock with mud this is a completely harmless species. Mason bee cells with pollen and larvae…

3. Exclusion, proofing buildings

…ning (the distance from thread to thread) is approximately 2.25 mm. A mesh with an aperture of 10 can keep houseflies, blowflies, wasps and bees out. A mesh with an aperture of 18. meaning openings of 1.15 mm, keeps fruit flies and mosquitoes out too. Birds can be kept out by a wire netting. Doors and gates should preferably be equipped with automatic closing mechanisms. If they necessarily must be open for the sake of customers or trucks, the ins…

The brown rat

…l animals. An adult rat eats an amount of feed that corresponds to 1/10 of its own body weight a day. Some of the places in the world where people have little access to food, the rats eat more than half of the stored food. In our latitudes rats’ main demerits are the gnawing of packaging and products, as well as contamination of food. There is no doubt that rats (and mice) are responsible for a large part of the food poisoning caused by Salmonella…

Life cycle

…larvae, which are almost bottle-shaped, stick to the ground sticking the body out in the water. On the head they have a special ‘brush-like’ mouth part that collects tiny organisms out of the water. Pupation occurs in a cocoon that is open at one end and is stuck on rocks or plants. There can be several generations of adult black flies, but usually they are most numerous in the spring, in May. Unlike midges, black flies fly several kilometers away…

The yellow mealworm beetle

…ggs hatch in a month. Both beetles and larvae can travel long distances in houses and warehouses, especially when in the larval stages because they seek a sheltered place for pupation. These insects might jostle their way through pipe ducts and vents. Fig. 5.30. Yellow mealworm beetle. a: larva, b: pupa, c: adult, d: egg surrounded by flour particles, e: antennae. The yellow mealworms beetle is not a significant pest compared to years ago when it…

Detection

…able when dealing with long hair. Part the hair with a comb. Hold the part open with your fingers and look closely at the scalp. Do the next parting parallel to the first, 1 cm away and continue like this until you have examined the whole scalp. 2 Brushing the hair. If the hair is not too long, you can brush lice etc. on to a piece of paper. The brushing needs to be hard and from the scalp. Put the contents of the paper into a glass bowl or the li…

The granary weevil

…es not live out in the open in Northern Europe. The weevils survive in warehouses where newly harvested grain is mixed with old, infested grain. The granary weevils live mainly in grains, and occasionally in hard baked goods such as dog biscuits and macaroni. The female lays one egg at a time in a small crevice, which it has made in a kernel. When the egg is laid, the hole is covered with secretion, so it is no longer visible, and now it can only…

Silverfish

…elsewhere they are almost exclusively associated with human habitations – houses, stables, outhouses and so on. Most people must have seen these small silvery insects run to shelter in the evening when the light is turned on in the kitchen, or may have found them in a bath or wash basin. They do not, as many believe, come up the drainpipe, but they become trapped after sliding down the smooth walls of the bath while searching for food during the…

Life cycle

…iginal family, but before that happens, the original queen leaves the hive with a swarm, about half of the family. The swarm settles down temporarily as a swarming, pear-shaped cluster under a branch or in a bush, and here they stay for a few days until worker bees (which scout in all directions) have found a suitable location for the new hive. Honey bees are not particularly eager to sting while swarming. When the swarm is out in the open, it is…

Where do invertebrates come from?

…m, and left the other uncovered. After some days there were maggots in the open container which had been visited by bluebottles, but none in the closed container. This was a very simple experiment, but it demonstrated an extremely important biological principle, namely that even the smallest animals, do not arise spontaneously but are always produced by an individual of the same species. There is good reason to mention this principle, for many peo…

Rat prevention

Windows should always have full glasses or be fitted with galvanized mesh with openings no greater than 20 mm and a wire thickness of at least 0.7 mm. Also vents should be secured with wire mesh. If there is room for a rat to pass, holes for pipes and wires should be covered with a tight-fitting galvanized sheet or sealed with wire mesh or concrete. Drain shafts must be secured with rat proof grits or covers. Downpipes and drains from sinks must…