Carpet Beetles Confused With Bed Bugs

Bed bugs have small flat bodies making it possible for them to fit into tiny spaces about the width of a credit card.

Carpet beetles confused with bed bugs.

Carpet beetles are sometimes confused with bed bugs carpet beetles and cockroaches come up a lot in conversations about identifying bed bugs. What are the bugs mistaken for bed bugs usually. Their heads are small and typically mostly hidden when looking at them from above with a short antenna. The most common bed bugs lookalikes are.

Unlike bed bugs carpet beetles have wings and can fly. They are very common in homes and properties and people continually ask if they have found the first signs of a bed bug infestation when they see a carpet beetle. Carpet beetles vs bed bugs one of the insects most often confused with bed bugs is the equally small and flat varied carpet beetle. Carpet beetles on the other hand measure between 1 16 of an inch and 1 8 of an inch long.

The insect s babies are small furry caterpillars. The main difference between these two is bed bugs sucking blood by piercing skin while beetles use their mouth chewing the plants and fibrous material. They are certainly both small and oval shaped but their similarities end there. Bed bugs measure of an inch long.

At first glance you might mistake a carpet beetle for the alarming oval body of a bed bug but this is another type of insect you can identify upon closer inspection. Also carpet beetle larvae look nothing like those of a bed bug. The biggest difference is in size. Bed bugs are reddish brown in color flat and typically the size of an apple seed only about 5 mm.

Carpet beetles usually prefer nectar and pollen. Booklice although rarer you can mistake bat bugs and. Carpet beetles and bed bugs are oftentimes confused for one another. Additionally a behavioral difference is that bed bugs feed on blood while carpet beetles feed on material type substances like carpet woolen fabric and other materials as well as types of stored up food.

You ve noticed that carpet beetles length varies a lot while bed. Cockroaches and bed bugs are the most similar but are noticeably different under a lighted magnifier where you can see the cockroach has hairy legs and bed bugs have no fur or hair on their legs. All it may be just confused carpet beetles that have lost their way. When using a magnifying glass you are able to see their eyes up close.

Carpet beetles feature a black and white pattern with orange or red scales. They typically have shiny black bodies with brown legs. There are many other varieties of carpet beetles that will vary in color and can have brown gray or even yellow markings. On the other hand bed bugs feed on the blood of human and other pets.