Material pests
By this we primarily mean adult insects and/or their larvae which, thanks to their mouthparts, have a strong gnawing ability. Material pests attack or destroy plant and animal materials and materials such as: Clothing, textiles, carpets, furs, paper, books, wood, leather or masonry and feed on them.
In the process, they leave frass marks (pitting), which often contribute to the complete destruction of the goods.
Particularly in commercial enterprises in the textile and construction industries, as well as in the antiques trade, the economic damage caused by material pests can be immense.
Well-known examples of material pests that occur in homes are termites, clothes moths, carpet beetles and fur beetles. They eat carpets, furs, fabrics, wool, blankets and upholstery and make them unusable. Termites and house longhorn beetles eat through wood and roof trusses unnoticed for years and can even cause buildings to collapse. The larvae of the museum beetle cause massive feeding damage to specimens in zoological animal collections.
Termites are mainly found in tropical and subtropical regions of the earth.