Carpet Beetle Dermatitis Nightmare

My daughter has been collecting insects for almost 5 years and we have been pretty fortunate to not have any issues of her collections get eaten by the notorious Carpet Beetle Dermatitis in the Coleoptera order .

 We make sure that we keep a pest strip in her boxes and change them out every 6 months.

 With my daughter's Autism she is pretty obsessive with her insects. I couldn't even image what it would do to her if something would happen to her insects.

 Since we moved last October to our new home surrounded by farm land we have to deal with a lot of insects inside. My Bug loves it. I am constantly fighting ants, spiders, and other pest.

One thing we never considered was her framed sealed pictures that have been given to her as gifts. She has a beautiful framed Luna Moth and a pair of Atlas Moths. A beautiful framed butterflies that was gifted to her. They are a good 15+ years and are in a gorgeous antique frame. The pictures are all tightly sealed-right. I guess I assumed they had something already in them to keep the critters away.

 Then one day I was dusting her butterfly frame and I seen that we had a problem. My heart stopped. 

I immediately looked at her Luna Moth and seen a Carpet Beetle Dermatitis on it. I took the moth out and removed the dreaded pest. No major damage! Guess what it had no pesticide in it. I put her Luna Moth and Atlas Moth in the freezer for 48 hours. I was a bit worried that the glass would cause some condensation and damage them. They are fine. Afterwards, I added some of the insect pesticide.

 Her butterfly frame is to large to put on ice. I added a pesticide stripe inside the box. Can you see the larva having a meal? Needless to say the butterflies do have a lot of damage. I will have to wait and see how it all turns out.

 We learned a lesson for sure about not overlooking any of her dead bugs being a meal for another insect. I guess another thing to add to our list with Bugs growing entomology collection.