Pantry Pests

Indian Meal Moths

Description: Indian Meal Moths are approximately 1/2” long when resting and their wingspan is roughly 3/4”. These moths lay eggs in food and grain products and spin webbing in and around the foods they have infested. This is a serious pantry pest which multiplies quickly and is hard to detect until they’ve invaded your pantry.

Attractions: The adult moths usually fly at night and lay eggs on food such as grain, dried food, and pet food. They are normally transported into the home in the egg stage via already infested food or pet products. The Indian meal moth is one of the most common pantry pests. They have an amazing ability to penetrate tightly sealed packaging and food containers often labeled as air tight. The caterpillar stage of this insect will feed on a variety of grains, meal, breakfast foods, dried nuts, seeds, birdseed, powdered milk, and dry pet foods. You may find the small caterpillars in their webs, attached to cans or other food storage canisters (normally at the lid or underneath the lid). They infest bags of rice, beans and cereal boxes.

Damage: This moth infests stored products and they lay their eggs on or near the food. After hatching, the small caterpillars begin spinning silken threads in the infested food material where they feed for about two weeks before becoming fully grown. They then crawl up to the surface of the food material or often up walls and pupate within a cocoon. This pest is easy to identify but hard to eradicate as they are virtually undetectable in the larva stage. To eliminate this pest, you must identify and eliminate all the stored products it has infested.

Mediterranean Meal Moth

Description: Mediterranean Meal Moths are slightly larger than the Indian Meal Moth. They are approximately ¾” long and have a wingspan of nearly 1 inch. They lay eggs in food and grain products, and spin webbing in and around the foods they have infested. This pantry pest is not as common as the Indian Meal Moth.

Attractions: Mediterranean Meal Moths prefer flour but can be found in many foods such as whole grains, corn, bran and breakfast cereal. The females lay their eggs in these products making them virtually impossible to detect until after the larvae hatch. As larvae, this pest spins a great deal of webbing while they are feeding and maturing. When they are ready to pupate, larvae leave their tubes to spin a cocoon. They often migrate a considerable distance from their food source while searching for a pupation site, and are found on walls, countertops, and ceilings.

Damage: In industrial environments, this moth causes clogging of machinery with its webbing, and at times, causes grain mill shut-downs. In the home they produce a series of thick, unsightly cocoons and webbing.

Angoumois Grain Moths

Description: Angoumois Grain Moths are approximately 1/3” long with a wingspan of half an inch. They infest wheat, grain and corn while the products are still in the field and are not often seen in the home.

Attractions: Moths lay their eggs on wheat heads and corn tips in the field and in stored grain held in processing centers. The eggs are white when laid but quickly turn red. These moths wreak havoc on wheat and corn and their feeding causes a reduction in weight and quality of these products. Heavily infested grain has a strong, pungent odor.

Damage: The feeding habits of this moth are particularly damaging to corn kernels since its larvae bores into and devours the germ of the kernel. Food infested with Grain Moths is not salable and is usually destroyed.

Sawtooth Grain Beetle

Description: The Sawtooth Grain Beetle is flattened, reddish-brown, and about 1/10” in length. Their most distinguishing feature is six saw-like projections on each side of the thorax (middle part between the head and the wing covers).

Attractions: Sawtoothed Beetles are common stored-food pests that infest cereals, cornmeal, cornstarch, popcorn, rice, dried fruits, flour, rolled oats, bran, pasta, sugar, drugs, spices, herbs, candy, dried meats, chocolate, bread, nuts, crackers, raisins, dried dog and cat food, and other food products. These insects contaminate more food than they consume, and are usually discovered leaving the infested food to crawl about the house. These beetles penetrate tightly sealed packaging.

Damage: These beetles are capable of chewing into unopened paper, cardboard boxes, through cellophane, plastic, and foil wrapped packages. Once inside, populations build up rapidly often spreading to other stored foods and into food debris accumulated in the cupboard corners, cracks, and crevices. They “saw” their way through packaging in order to feed but they do not bite humans or pets, spread disease, or feed on the house or furniture.

Granary Weevil

Description: The Granary Weevil is also known as the Grain Weevil. They are approximately 1/8” long, are reddish-brown, and have chewing mouthparts at the end of their snouts. They are distinguished from the Sawtooth Beetle by their extensions at the base of the snout and elongated pits on the thorax.

Attractions: The Grain Weevil is highly attracted to wheat, oats, rye, barley, rice, and corn. The Granary Weevil is most commonly found in grain processing and storage centers. They are rarely transported into the home unless they are transported unknowingly in the larvae stage. When disturbed, the adults pull in their legs, fall to the ground and play dead.

Damage: Like its cousin, the Sawtooth Beetle, this beetle feeds on the internal parts of whole grains during the larvae stage, making early detection difficult. This damage is primarily seen after harvest. Large quantities of grain are destroyed annually due to infestations. This pest does not bite, sting, spread disease or feed on the house or furniture.

Cigarette Beetle

Description: The Cigarette Beetle is oval shaped and approximately 1/10” long. Their bodies are yellowish-brown and they are covered with small hairs which give them a silky appearance.

Attractions: As their name implies, the Cigarette Beetle is attracted to tobacco which is their primary feeding source. Additionally they feed on book bindings, leaves and dried flower arrangements. This is a serious pantry pest because of the range of products they can infest. If they are seen in the home, it is only because they have been transported. This pest is most commonly seen in dried tobacco in stored or bundled form. It hides its eggs in the tobacco before processing, and the larvae begins to eat the product once hatched. Telltale signs in tobacco products are tiny holes (pin-pricks) around the wrapped edges of the cigarette or cigar.

Damage: Infestations in a tobacco processing center usually result in destroying the infected tobacco. However, their larvae is so small that once laid they often go undetected. These pests can be transported into your home through larvae infested cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, books and dried flower arrangements.

Mealworms

Description: Mealworms are the larval form of the Mealworm Beetle. They are worm-like and somewhat firm, which enables them to burrow. They are ½-3/4” long with coloring that changes from white to tan and then to stripes as they develop.

Attractions: The beetles and larvae eat decaying leaves, sticks, grasses and occasionally new plant growth. As general decomposers, they also eat dead insects and feces. This pest is damaging to stored grain. Mealworms live in areas surrounded by what they eat so they can be found under rocks, logs, in animal burrows and stored grains. They clean up after plants and animals, and therefore can be found anywhere where “leftovers” occur. Mealworms prefer darkness and to have their bodies in contact with another mealworm or object.

Damage: Mealworms have a positive effect on the ecosystem but are a real pest in grains. Infestations in grain storage or processing plants usually result in having to destroy the grain. Mealworms are bred in captivity as a food source for reptiles, birds and fish.

Drugstore Beetle

Description: These beetles are cylindrical, 2.25 to 3.5 mm (1/10 to 1/7 inch) long, and are a uniform brown to reddish brown. Drugstore Beetles are extremely similar in appearance to Cigarette Beetles except for two subtle differences. The antennae of the cigarette beetle are serrated (like the teeth on a saw) while the antennae of the Drugstore Beetle are not and end in a 3-segmented club. The other difference is that the wing covers of the Drugstore Beetle have rows of pits giving them a lined appearance while those of the cigarette beetle are smooth.

Attractions: The Drugstore Beetle gets its name from its habit of feeding on prescription drugs. It also feeds on flours, dry mixes, breads, cookies, chocolates and other sweets, and spices. Non-food material includes wool, hair, leather, horn, and museum specimens. It is found in pigeon nests and is known to bore into books, wooden objects, and, in some cases, tin or aluminum foil and lead sheets. Larval feeding accounts for the greatest amount of damage.

Damage: Like most pantry pests, Drugstore Beetles destroy and contaminate the foods that they are attracted to. Because they eat such a large variety of foods and materials, they’re potential for contamination and destruction is very high.