Clothes Moths and their Control

Abstract

A MONG entomologists there are well known to be two very common moths the larvae of which are destructive to fabrics; namely, the case-making clothes moth (Tinea pellionella L.) and the webbing clothes moth (Tineola biselliela Hum.); the tapestry moth (Trichophaga tapetzella L.) is much less frequent but is occasionally destructive. In the case-making clothes moth, the larva makes a portable habitation out of its silk, together with fragments of the material upon which it feeds. It withdraws completely into the case when resting, but when feeding or moving it protrudes its head and foremost body-segments. Pupation also takes place within the case, which is sealed up and anchored to the fabric or other object. The webbing clothes moth is the most abundant species of the three; its larva does not construct a portable case, but spins silken tunnels wherever it crawls over the material which it is consuming. When fully fed it constructs a silken cocoon intermixed with particles of fabric and excrement; this pupal shelter, therefore, is quite different from that of the species previously mentioned. In the rarer tapestry moth the larva constructs silk-lined burrows through the substance of the material which it infests.