Biscuit beetle
The biscuit beetle is a tiny brown beetle that can be found infesting a wide variety of dried plant products. It prefers dried herbs and plant material, sometimes used as drugs, hence why it’s also known as the drugstore beetle, and they have also been known to feed on strychnine, a highly toxic herbal extract. It can also feed on a diverse range of dried foods and spices, as well as hair, leather, books, museum artefacts, and as their name suggests, biscuits. The fact that they tend to eat expensive plant material means that these can become extreme costly if treatment or preventative measures are not put in place quickly.
Size: Adults can be up to 3.5 mm in length.
Colour: They are mid-dark brown beetles with a matte appearance.
Breeding: The female can lay up to 75 eggs at once, and the larval period can last up to several months depending on the food source.
Although they will eat all kinds of biscuits (including pet food biscuits), they will infest a wide variety of foods including cereals, powdered soups, dried milk powder, and more. The female beetle will usually lay her eggs in foodstuff that is suitable for larval development. These eggs will then hatch and the newly emerged larvae will chew their way through most types of packaging materials to feed on the contents within. It is the larvae that do the damage, because the adult beetles do not feed, however they can fly and this is how infestations in commercial food storage areas can easily become widespread in a short amount of time.
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