At some point nearly every home will have to deal with some type of stored product pest. Some of these pests are an occasional inconvenience, while others can cause serious damage to food or personal articles. These pests can be broken down into two categories:
- those that feed on stored foods, and
- those that feed on products that contain animal proteins.
Food pest are likely to have been introduced to a home by bringing an infested package from the store home. Meanwhile, those that feed on animal products can be introduced both from the store as well as from outside the home.
Here at the Center for Urban & Structural Entomology, we are contracted to study different control methods for stored product pests. In order to facilitate this research we maintain colonies of the different pests associated with stored products. Below is a list of the species of stored product pests that we currently maintain.
- Indian meal moths – Plodia interpunctella
- Saw-tooth Grain Beetles – Oryzaephilus surinamensis
- Red Flour Beetles – Tribolium castaneum
- Confused Flour Beetles – Tribolium confusum
- Warehouse Beetles – Trogoderma variablile
- Cigarette Beetles – Lasioderma serricorne
- Lesser Grain Borers – Rhyzopertha dominica
