''Attagenus smirnovi'', the brown carpet beetle, is a species of beetle from the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Dermestidae Dermestidae are a family of Coleoptera that are commonly referred to as skin beetles. Other common names include larder beetle, hide or leather beetles, carpet beetles, and khapra beetles. There are over 1,100 species described. Dermestids have ...

. It is a

synanthropic A synanthrope (from the Greek σύν ''syn'', "together with" + ἄνθρωπος ''anthropos'', "man") is a member of a species of wild animal or plant that lives near, and benefits from, an association with human beings and the somewhat artific ...

pest which lives in human buildings, homes and museums and eats wool-textiles, carpets, skin and fur. Due to its specific epithet ''smirnovi'', the beetle is also known in the United Kingdom as the 'Vodka beetle', after the

Smirnoff Smirnoff (; ) is a brand of vodka owned and produced by the British company Diageo. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov (1831–1898). It is distributed in 130 countries. Smirnoff prod ...

brand of

vodka Vodka ( pl, wódka , russian: водка , sv, vodka ) is a clear distilled alcoholic beverage. Different varieties originated in Poland, Russia, and Sweden. Vodka is composed mainly of water and ethanol but sometimes with traces of impuriti ...

.''Attagenus smirnovi''
Article, Danish National Museum

Features

Their bodies reach a length of between 2.3 and 4 millimetres.
Images at Dermestidae.com The head and

pronotum The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum ( dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on e ...

are dark brown to black. Their

elytra An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...

are densely hairy and light brown.

Distribution

Naturally found in Africa, they have spread to Russia (where they were first observed in 1961, in Moscow, by E. S. Smirnov), the Czech Republic and other eastern European countries, along with Germany (where the first example was found in 1985 in

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...

), Denmark and the United Kingdom. The species was first described as a new one in 1973, by Rustem Devletovich Zhantiev, who named it ''Attagenus smirnovi''. The museums and scientific institutions of Northern Europe set up an international project to research the brown fur beetle's distribution in Europe and how this may be related to

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

.Project "Insect pests and climate change - The Attagenus smirnovi project"

Naturhistoriska riksmuseet The Swedish Museum of Natural History ( sv, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, literally, the National Museum of Natural History), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The ...

, Stockholm, Sweden Its research areas include which climatic conditions allow it to spread by flying from house to house.

References

External links

''Attagenus smirnovi''
at Fauna Europaea
Insect pests and climate change. The ''Attagenus smirnovi'' project.
*
''Attagenus smirnovi''
Images at Insektoid.Info *

Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit {{Taxonbar, from=Q901152 Dermestidae Beetles of Africa Beetles described in 1973