Biology:
Females do not always lay their eggs on larval food material. The eggs hatch in 17-18 days. Development time from egg to adult usually requires 249-354 days at room temperature, but may take as long as 2-3 years depending upon temperature and food. Adult males live 13-28 days whereas females live 14-144 days.Complete Metamorphosis.

Habits:
Varied carpet beetle larva feed on a wide variety of animal and plant products. Animal origin materials include woollens, carpets, furs, hides, feathers, horns, bones, hair, silk, fishmeal, insect pupae and dead insects. Plant origin materials include meal, corn, cacao and cereals etc. Their favoured foods are insects and spiders, which makes them a major pest of museum collections. On fabrics the larva tend to surface graze but are quite capable of making small or large irregular holes.

Reasons for Control:
Contamination of goods and products, considerable damage to goods and products, loss of goodwill.