What is it?

I was cleaning out my mealworm drawers when I pulled out this little thing. It seems to be leaving some kind of web in the drawer. I'm finding tons of molts from the mealworms stuck together in loose balls because of the stringy web. What is this thing? It does have small hairs all over its body and a red head. It is about as long as two grains of rice, and about as thick as one.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...ake/bug001.jpg

From the picture it looks like a butter worm.

I looked up butter worm and those seem to be smooth. This worm has very very small hairs all over its body. Now we have had some moths flying around the room the mealworms are in. Is it possible they got into the mealworm drawers and laid eggs in the substrate? I only found the one but found the same web like substance in the bottom drawer where the beetles are. I did not find a worm there.

Yes, that would be very possible too. I would try and find them and take them all out, not sure if there would be any, but just to prevent any problems.

Aha! I had a bag of bird pellets that I had to stop using because the moths got into it (I didn't close it all the way) and laid eggs in the pellets. I found dozens of little worms in it and I closed it up tight and set it aside to throw away. Well I forgot to throw it away and I just went upstairs and opened it. I find inside, little yellow worms with red heads sitting in little hammocks made of web. I don't think they are pupating but it looks like they are trying to. I got a picture.

The moth butter worms become (Chilean Moth?) does look similar to the moths I've seen flying around the room. Small and brown. But these worms seem smaller and less orange than the butter worms I'm seeing in pictures.

Worms in food bag.
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r..._Snake/bug.jpg

Two more pictures (these show the color a bit better)
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...ake/bug004.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...ake/bug003.jpg

I can't tell because they are so small, but butter worms don't have hair. I would guess they came from the moths in the room.

I looked these guys over. What I thought was hair was a fuzz from their webs. I looked really closely at the ones in the bag. No hair. I don't think they are butter worms as from what I've read, butter worms that come into this country are irradiated and made so they can't pupate. I wouldn't have moths if they couldn't pupate.

But now I'm really curious as to what they actually are. If I catch a moth, I'll take a picture, but I've only seen one in the past week, crawling around in my mealworm drawers.

I don't think it is true that they cannot pupate, there are some people that claim to breed them, but I'm not sure as to the truth behind it. I'm in no way a bug expert, sorry I can't tell you exactly what it is, I just thought butter worm.

We've had a struggle with these when I worked at the actual Petsmart store. The old bird food alot of them. Also the Iams bag had these "maggots" and you would see moths fly around when they were disturbed. Obviously they don't look like actual maggots, but we really don't know what they are. Orkin would come in and put several of those sticky papers around the dog food. It helped for the moths but we had to throw all of the Iams bags away one time.

Now that I work at the DC I actually got a pop card for telling a supervisor that a WHOLE pallet of bird food had these "maggots". It was bad they had to throw it all away, but hey I got a pop card out of it! lol

I just wish I knew exactly what they were. I will try and catch a moth to take a picture of and hopefully compare it to pics online. I wish I could breed other insects as well as I do these guys. I don't even know what they are or how to breed them and I had dozens of the worms and at least a dozen or more of the moths flying around the room. No more moths in the room that I can see, but I'll do a better search tonight.

I'm fairly certain that what you got there is an Indian Meal Moth (we call it Pantry moth). I hate those things! They sometimes show up in the 50lb bag of rice I get from the Asian market and I had to throw the bag away! I now buy my rice from somewhere else and I haven't had them in a while.

They are just like you described - webby with red noses. And guess what, Brandon Pest Control can't get rid of them.

They make pheromone traps for those guys that work really well.
It's actually better if you buy the pheromone trap, and take the bait out and put it on a fly strip.

I have one in my animal room from when I had a freakin' infestation of moths, that I kid you not has 300+ moths stuck to it. Once enough get lured in by the pheromones, then the whole strip starts smelling like moths, and it attracts them even more.

Yep...looks like a Pantry Moth to me. Nasty little critters and can be challenging to get rid of if they're solidly established because they'll leave their eggs in all sorts of nooks and crannies that you won't know are there until you find the worms or worse, the empty casings left by the worms. I wish I'd known about pheromone traps when I had to deal with them years ago. They came in on one of those cinnamon brooms you hang in the pantry to make it smell good. I'll never buy another one of those again! Since I'd never seen or heard of these things before, they got pretty well established before I put 2 and 2 together. I had to throw away a LOT of food because anything that wasn't canned was fair game. Even glued box-tops and sealed plastic bags (cereal for instance) was not enough to keep them from finding a way into the food.

Good luck.

Yeah, in my mom's house we've found them in bags of noodles and things. They'll chew right through the cardboard and everything.