"Lise" wrote in message
...
I just watched the beetles slideshow in the "bugpeople" site you pointed.
Are the "Dermestidae" the kind of parasites that will annoy humans?

As I understand it, dermestids and their larvae are mostly scavengers
on dead, especially dry, animal matter. They aren't parasites as
far as I know, but I suppose they may often live in animal nests and
live on food scraps and loose hair or feathers.

Dermestidae do include some annoying pests like the well-known
"carpet beetle" that attack materials like wool, feathers,
museum specimens including insect collections, etc.

On the other hand, dermestids are useful to museums or others who
need to prepare skeletons of animals for display and study. Dried
partly-defleshed carcasses are sealed in a captive colony of
thousands of dermestid beetles and their larvae, to slowly devour
the remaining meat from the bones and so leave the skeleton more
or less cleaned of flesh in one easy step.

But I suppose this is OT for sci.bio.botany.
There is however sci.bio.entomology.misc, where you might
find answers to any other insect-but-not-plant questions.
[It looks like many of the threads there are "what is this bug?"
type queries]

cheers