Anyone care to identify this?

[andrewducker]

Little critter on my floor when Julie and I cleaned and hoovered the place this afternoon:


His back's all covered in little hairs/cilia and he has six legs at the front of his body, but none further back. About 1.5cm long.

Any experts out there?

Comments

[trav28.livejournal.com]

Mutant carpet beetle?

Looks a bit scary from your description

[call-waiting.livejournal.com]

Well, look it up in the bug database?

*cough*

Sorry.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

What's so funny? :D (also)

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Could it be a carpet beetle?

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, from a bit of web research it looks like that's what we had. Cheers.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

It's a bug.

[soon_lee]

No, it's a feature.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

*rimshot*

[anef.livejournal.com]

According to The Internet carpet beetles/ larvae only grow to about 4mm. Yours is obviously an enormous mutant carpet beetle. Or something else. I would have suggested a woodlouse but it's obviously furry.

[neferet.livejournal.com]

That looks a bit like what we get in the bathroom from time to time. Best identification I could get was larvae of either a larder beetle or hide beetle (both closely related). Same family as carpet beetles, only the larvae are bigger and hairier. I've not managedf to capture an adult yet to check :)

does this look like the wee beastie?

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

UUUUGG.
Big woodlouse!

[pisica.livejournal.com]

That's what we call them, assuming this is the same thing. Perdita occasionally bats one around - they roll up very nicely - but otherwise ignores them.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Looks like a pillbug to me.

[fetket.livejournal.com]

I reason to never visit...


BUG!!!

*Hides behind chair*

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Definately NOT a bug, because it isn't Hemiptera. Sorry, I can be a taxonomic pedant.

The photo looks a bit like a woodlouse, but my guess is that you'd recognise that so let's say it isn't.

I think it might be the larva of a carpet beetle or moth of some sort - what I thought were known as woolly bears and apparently, in the UK only, still are.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Oh, and sorry for the lack of a witty answer...

[andrewducker]

Not a woodlouse, as its back is covered in "hairs", and its legs are all at the front, rather than evenly distributed. Larva seems much more likely.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I agree that it must be some sort of larva.

I worked in an (NHS!) office infested with silverfish and woodlouse, I know its not one of them :)

[zz]

are silverfish Bad? they freak me out a bit, but i only see one every few months, usually when i'm sitting on the loo and it thinks i'm a great big shadow to hide under.

we get the odd woodlouse wandering about the flat, because the garden's FILLED with them. i've got used to them now, except when i get one stuck to my (socked) foot.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Well, one member of staff had a LOT of bite marks on her arms after moving the contents of one filing cabinet to another... She blamed the silverfish, but I think it must have been something else, because the internetz tell me they don't bite.

I had them in the bathroom when I lived in Newington and put down stuff to kill them.

Ahhh the joys and perils of having a garden :)

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

It's clearly a cybermat

[alpha-c3ntaur.livejournal.com]

If it was one of these then its a carpet beetle larvae

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

That looks about right!

[coffee-lifeform.livejournal.com]

I would second the hide beetle analysis; most houses in Edinburgh which are of any sort of age have them. Generally speaking, if they're yellow-ish in colour they're carpet beetle larvae, if they're black-ish they're hide beetles.

http://www.deathonline.net/decomposition/images/250/hide_larva.jpg

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

yes - hide beetles!