Clothes moths

Indoor Pests cockroaches, fleas, flies, Hce, carpet beetles, clothes moths, silverfish, centipedes, millipedes, termites mice, rats mil dew... 

Wool, as a keratin, is a highly cross-linked, insoluble proteinaceous fiber, and few animals have developed the specialized digestive systems that aUow them to derive nutrition from the potential protein resource. In nature, these few keratin-digesting animals, principally the larvae of clothes moths and carpet beetles, perform a useful function in scavenging the keratinous parts of dead animals and animal debris (fur, skin, beak, claw, feathers) that ate inaccessible to other animals. It is only when these keratin-digesting animals attack processed wool goods that they are classified as pests. Very often they enter domestic or industrial huildings from natural habitats such as birds nests. 

Phenazine-l-carboxamide (137) is known as oxychlororaphine and has been isolated from cultures of Pseudomonas chlororaphisit has some limited inhibitory properties, but the inhibitory action of phenazines is generally disappointing. Some phenazine derivatives have insecticidal properties thus, phenazine itself has been found to be toxic to the clothes moth, the Hawaiian beet webworm, the rice weevil and larva of the codling moth, but under trial conditions its toxicity to plant material, as evidenced by severe burning of foliage, was found to be too high to make it of practical value. 

Clothes Moths Mosquitoes Fleas Flies Bed Bugs... 

Analyses of methanolic extracts of the male webbing clothes moth (WCM), Tineola hisselliella (Hum.) (Lepidoptera Tineidae) showed three candidate pheromone components namely, hexadecanoic acid methyl ester, (.Z)-9-hexadecenoic acid methyl ester, and octadec-anoic acid methyl ester. In bioassay experiments, the 16 carbon esters were attractive to both males and virgin females but the 18 carbon ester was inactive. The extracts of female WCM showed two compounds as candidate sex pheromone components, namely (T, )-2,13-octadecadienal and E,Z) 2,13-octadecadienol. The synthetic samples of the aldehyde and alcohol were attracting WCM males in bioassay experiments successfully ... 

Paul Hermann Muller received a degree in chemistry and worked for the J. R. Geigy Corporation, which later became part of Novartis (McGrayne 2001). Geigy specialized in dyestuffs for woolens. Chemists at the company discovered a chlorinated hydrocarbon compound that protected woolens from clothes moths, but it was a stomach poison. Geigy then searched for other insecticides that killed other pests. Natural insecticides made from plants include pyrethrum from chrysanthemum, rotenone from a tropical... 

In order to evaluate the results of the operations, insects of several species were caged in the buildings that were to be fogged, both in the open and in places of difficult access, such as in cupboards and behind baseboards. In the first series of tests, the insects included bedbugs, cockroaches, houseflies, clusterflies, clothes moths, and carpet beetles. 

Several experiments have also been carried out in wool storage warehouses, with consequent reductions in clothes moth infestations. In one such experiment a check was afforded by the use of electric light-and-fan moth traps. During a 2-week period before the fogging, 11 traps captured 5589 moths. In the 2-week period after fogging, the same traps captured only 3 moths. 

Robinson, C. P., Ciccotosto, S., and Sparrow, L. G. (1993). Identification of a key enzyme in the digestion of wool by larvae of the webbing clothes moth, Tine-ola bisselliella. /. Textile Inst. 84, 39-48. 

In another study, 0.25%- pynelhrins + 1. 0% PBO applied from domestic aerosol cans protected woollen cloth from attack by webbing clothes moths for up to 27 months and by carpet beetles for shorter periods when the treated articles were stored in the dark (Bry et vl., 1477). 

The aim of Paul Muller s research work, begun in 1935 was to develop contact insecticide compounds to be used primarily against clothes-moth. In 1939 he established the insecticidal efficiency of those compounds in which two p-chloro-substituted benzene rings are linked together by a central bivalent radical (Muller, 1940 1955) ... 

A wool-like fiber, sp gr 1.18. Softens at about 175". Flammability similar to cotton and viscose, fnsol in acetone, methylene chloride. Good resistance to sunlight, clothes-moth and carpet-beetle attack, and mildew moderate resistance to 10% H2S04 at 100" for hrs, and to 0.5% caustic soda at 43 for 7 days. Shrinks about 1% when immersed in boiling water for 3 minutes. Difficult to dye. Relatively resistant to pilling. 

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