What are these insects?

[Shining Arcanine]

I posted a thread on this subject a while ago, so to make a long story short, I will quote my original post:

I keep finding a small fury insect (although it might be a member of the worm family and therefore I'd "have" to apologize to it for not being politically correct ) in my bathroom, no where else in the house, just in my bathroom, normally between the tile although I once saw one on the wall. Whenever I find one, I get some toliet paper, kill it and flush it down the toliet, but a new one always appears in anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

I have attached a few pictures (taken by with Kodak Easyshare CX7530 digital camera, and color corrected and cropped in the easyshare software). Could anyone identify this bug and hopefully tell me where it is coming from?

Back then, no one could identify the insects I found around the house and most commonly in the bathroom because the pictures lacked detail. Today, I found an abnormally large one in the bath room. I would say that it was about 25% larger than normal (although it was still the length of a sharpened pencil tip). I snapped several pictures of it before I killed it and a few of the pictures were of decent clarity. I noticed some details of the insect in them that I had not previously seen with my own eyes. I have attached a cropped version of the best one. Does anyone have any idea what this insect is, where it originates and why I manage to find a few of them, typically in the bathroom, every few months?

[Neal-UK]

Can you post a link to a larger picture, that's just too small to see clearly.

[peterska2]

At a guess I'd say it is something from the caterpillar family. Not a clue what though.

To be honest, one every few weeks I wouldn't be too worried about, but if they become more regular or you suddenly get a few of them then I'd be contacting pest control to come and take care of it.

[Freddie Bingham]

Well are they actually quite small? They look like the larvae of the Varied Carpet Beetle, which enjoys dining on your woolen clothes. The beetles and larvae vary in appearance so they don't always look exactly like pictured below.

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef601.htm

http://www.bugclinic.com/carpet_beetle.htm

[Freddie Bingham]

Or it could be a pantry beetle larvae



Look here: http://whatsthatbug.com/pantry.html

[Shining Arcanine]

Can you post a link to a larger picture, that's just too small to see clearly.

That is the largest picture I have. I have a few other pictures that have similar detail, but none of them have it larger. Keep in mind that I am taking pictures of something the size of a pencil tip.

At a guess I'd say it is something from the caterpillar family. Not a clue what though.

To be honest, one every few weeks I wouldn't be too worried about, but if they become more regular or you suddenly get a few of them then I'd be contacting pest control to come and take care of it.

Yeah, I started to think of them as something other than an insect after I looked at them more closely. I am still calling them insects until I find out exactly what they are.

I just found another one today (this time in my room). A week ago I found one in a wash cloth. It is getting on my nerves.

Well are they actually quite small? They look like the larvae of the Varied Carpet Beetle, which enjoys dining on your woolen clothes. The beetles and larvae vary in appearance so they don't always look exactly like pictured below.

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef601.htm

http://www.bugclinic.com/carpet_beetle.htm

That would explain why I found one in the linen closet the other day but that was the first time in years that I have ever found one there, so I do not think that can be its food source, especially since there are no holes in any of the fabrics or carpets to my knowledge.

Or it could be a pantry beetle larvae



Look here: http://whatsthatbug.com/pantry.html

That looks more like it. The banding pattern looks similar to what is in the picture and there are clearly hairs on it (in person, it appears to be furry). From far away, the insect appears to have a white dot in the center and dark brown everywhere else on its top, but given the small size of the white bands outside of the middle, I would expect my eye to miss those details. The bottom coloration I have seen on them appears to be a light color, which I do see on the ones here.

The only thing is that in the picture, it appears to have a head or mouth of some sort and that does not appear in that picture. I never see bettles here and I have never seen any of them in the pantry, although I do not go there often; everything should be sealed so I do not know what their food source would be there. I will send my picture into whatsthatbug.com to find out why they think that there is such a discrepancy.

[Chousho]

Can't help you identify it, but I can tell you it looks mighty tasty!

[Dean C]

It looks like a maggot tbh.