Noshing moth menaces misled into male-on-male mating

Crafty museum curators in London, outraged by lepidopterans gobbling their well-stuffed exhibits, have fought back with a sinister plan that has seen the noshing attackers tricked into orgies of male-on-male sex and hence unable to reproduce. We learn of the scheme from the Telegraph, reporting on a mysterious London …

[Fihart]

Bloody moths.

Clothes moths seem to be supreme survivors. Just whacking every one you see settled on a wall reduces their numbers and subsequent damage but they still come back in a trickle throughout summer/autumn and return next spring.

Friend has used pheromone stickers and they certainly attract and trap the little buggers. But the numbers trapped seems to remain constant, so this is less effective than whacking them.

Forget fly spray which kills mozzies and flies -- and spiders that may prey on moths. Probably do more harm to yourself than to the moths.

Best is prevention. If you buy secondhand clothes, run them through the hottest wash immediately. If holes appear in a garment, hot wash or discard at once. Store all natural fibre garments in reasonably sealed cupboards with mothballs. Regularly use vacuum cleaner attachment on carpet edges.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bloody moths.

> If you buy secondhand clothes, run them through the hottest wash immediately.

One of my family collects teddy bears which are a tasty moth buffet. When one comes in from eBay or wherever the bear goes straight into the freezer and stays there for a couple of days.

It's extremely effective but a bit disconcerting when you go for the ice cream and a row of frosty glassy eyes stare back at you...

[Little Mouse]

Re: "straight into the freezer"

You might just be speeding up the natural selection process....

It's a fine line between cleaning Teddy Bears and creating Doomsday.

[Fihart]

Re: straight in the microwave

Found one of the buggers (doubtless laying eggs) on drying socks. Missed the little blighter but re-washed socks, rinsed, popped them in microwave for 2 minutes. Poached eggs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moth balls

The answer is moth balls. With a little practice, one becomes quit proficient at hitting the little buggers with them.

[Graham Bartlett]

Re: Moth balls

The answer is definitely moth balls. Remove them early enough and it can't breed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit of an odd one this

because the only class of insecticides that bee lovers are worried about are the neonicotinoids which are mainly used as agricultural pesticides.

They could use ultraviolet insectocutors or pheremone traps.

Fly spray as Fihart correctly states is no good as it has no residual properties. But there are others which do and pose no significan danger to bees.

Carpet beetle larvae (wooly bears) are a bigger issue and museums routinely use **methrin based residual insecticides to treat those.

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

Re: Bit of an odd one this

UV insect traps are mostly useless. Most of what they catch are confused but harmless insects; they don't cut the numbers of clothes moths very much, and they are useless for killing mosquitoes and midges.

Where insecticides are concerned, the bad news is that most insecticides on the market aren't going to be much use as they are too volatile to remain on anything for very long. The good news is that for insects like clothes moths, woodworm and the like, you do not actually need to use neurotoxic poisons at all. What works much better is a borax dissolved in a mixture of water and propylene glycol.

This works selectively on just the larvae of the moths, and then usually only when they have just hatched. A hatching lepidopteran caterpillar starts by eating the shell of the egg it just crawled out of, then it eats the substrate the egg was laid on. It has to, as it hasn't got much energy to roam around and look for anything tastier. If the substrate is saturated with a stomach poison like borax, adsorbed into it along with a solvent, then that first meal is going to be the larva's last one.

That works very well on woodworm and on clothes moths. Dusting with silica dusts like Kieselguhr is also effective on insects, as it scratches the waxy coating on their bodies and causes them to dehydrate. For a clothes moth, a normal house is a desert without water, and if their water-conservation physiological tricks are compromised, they die.

Neither of these tricks will work with museum specimens, and the other old standby for keeping preserved collections of insects safe, which is strategic containers of napthalene, is discouraged these days not least because napthalene is a suspect carcinogen. It also doesn't work on stuffed specimens, as they have to be out in the open so cannot be surrounded by a vapour-phase insecticide.

Permeating the area with sex pheromone will work, and is a standby for organic pest control, but insect sex pheromones are volatile long-chain alcohols and the like, and need to be present in very specific ratios to be perceived as a sex pheromone (I have a PhD in sex pheromones). This does not of course apply for mammal sex pheromones, or for water/soil living animals for obvious reasons.

Pheromone traps containing encapsulated sex pheromone in powder form is, however, a very, very neat trick indeed. The only thing vaguely similar I have seen is to use pheromone traps containing entomopathogenic fungal spores to control carrot flies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bit of an odd one this

UV insect traps are mostly useless. Most of what they catch are confused but harmless insects; they don't cut the numbers of clothes moths very much, and they are useless for killing mosquitoes and midges.

You will seldom find One method is entirely successful in dealing with any significant insect infestation.

However, in food premises, they are the defacto solution for almost all flying insect jobs.

---------------------------------------

Where insecticides are concerned, the bad news is that most insecticides on the market aren't going to be much use as they are too volatile to remain on anything for very long. The good news is that for insects like clothes moths, woodworm and the like, you do not actually need to use neurotoxic poisons at all. What works much better is a borax dissolved in a mixture of water and propylene glycol.

Disagree. Wettable powders, such as ficam-w provide months of residual action on concrete or nearly all porous surfaces. They are also effective on porous surfaces but then a micro emulsion such as fendona or stingray will also provide months of action on non-porous surfaces. In both cases it is important to not mop. vacuum, sweep the treated areas else efficacy WILL be *reduced* but not eliminated.

Boric acid is a slow acting stomach poison and although slightly effective against insects like ants, it pales in comparison with commercial stuff. If it was any good, it would be commercially available. It isn’t. You may consider it more bio friendly, but it is not effective.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diatomaceous earth (Kieslghur) is once again, only effective as an adjunct. I defy you to clear bed bugs with nothing more than diatoms. You are correct in its mode of action but not in its efficacy.--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naphthalene has been out of favour for years. Yes it’s a suspected carcinogen but it’s just not effective anymore.

The *best* way is with an IGR/IDR (Insect growth regulator/insect development regulator) like methoprene or pyriproxyfen (Nylar) which are juvenile hormone replacements. These will either cause sterility (in the case of complete metamorphosis (case bearing clothes moth, fleas) or prevent the formation of cuticle (incomplete metamorphosis, ala bedbug) so the insect cannot moult.

BPCA/NPTA registered pest controller!

[thomas k]

gives new meaning ...

to the phrase "like moths to a flame".

[Phil O'Sophical]

orgies of male-on-male sex

But, but,...Won't anyone think of the caterpillars?

[Little Mouse]

The Ultimate Darwin Award?

Those curators had better be careful not to spill any on themselves.

[launcap]

Re: The Ultimate Darwin Award?

> Those curators had better be careful not to spill any on themselves.

I suspect very few moths go on to a career in museum curation..

[yogidude]

Pheromones are the moth equivalent of a wig

in a dream sequence featuring David Bowie, Flight of the Conchords have already established that pretending your bed mate is female does not count as gay.

" - Hey, David Bowie? - Yes, Bret? Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Of course, Bret.

That's what I'm here for.

Mm, if a friend of yours puts a wig on you when he's Ionely, pretends you're a woman, is that gay? He was pretending you're a woman? No, that's not gay.

Are you sure? Totally fine.

Mm, okay.

[Anonymous Coward]

***awaits link to 'Won't somebody thing of the baby moths' article in the Daily Fail***

[David Pollard]

Was this a USAF black op?

For detail see the 2007 Ignoble Peace Prize awarded to the Wright Laboratory:

http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2007

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/13/usa.danglaister

A similar plan by the CIA was also detailed in the 'Nine Lives' issue of Fat Freddy's Cat, incredibly enough based on another apparently genuine secret weapons programme some twenty years or so previously. Copies are a little difficult to find.

https://www.lambiek.net/shop/series/fat_freddy_s_cat/i_led_nine_lives.html