Tinea pellionella – The Case-bearing Clothes Moth

I spotted something moving very slowly along a wall in the house this morning and took a close look. I thought maybe it was a bagworm at first, but a couple of experts on Twitter, Colin Foote @MothIDUK and Richard Lewington confirmed it as the larva of the Case-bearing Clothes Moth, Tinea pellionella. These are sometimes colloquially known as bagworms, but they’re not fully fledged bagworms, that word is reserved for a group of moths known as the Psychids.

Now, I’ve almost certainly seen the adults of this species, although there are several very similar Tinea adults that are almost indistinguishable, so I couldn’t tell you for certain. But, I’d definitely not seen the insect in the larval stage…as with the bagworms (the Psychids), the Case-bearing Clothes Moth makes a home for itself from fragments of materials it finds when it hatches from its egg – wool and fur – for instance, which it can also eat, although it does dine on feathers in bird’s nests too. The unrelated Psychids might also use bark, wood, sand, and lichen. The case-bearer wraps itself up in its case for protection and camouflage. It’s perhaps the ultimate in mini-beast home-building. There may well be some larval silk spinning involved in building these cases and bags.
It’s a not dissimilar strategy to that used by the leafroller moths (the Totricids, from the same root as torque), which roll themselves up in a leaf of their larval foodplant. But, i...

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - June 26, 2023 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs