Image Credit Christophe Quintin
Museum beetles (Dermestidae: Anthrenus) – pollenivore. Pollen is a rich food source, if you can digest even a small part of it. Portions of both of these families of beetles specialize on pollen as an adult food. Presumably the adult beetles ingest pollen and the pollen starts to grow in their stomachs which allows a great amount of nutrient to “leak out” of the otherwise impregnable pollen grains (the tropical Heliconius butterflies have also evolutionarily learned to “eat” pollen for egg production). Museum-beetles have earned their name from their ability to find and eat both the pressed plants and stuffed or pinned animals in museum collections.
Though most museum beetles are associates with dead vertebrates, and even the dead insect remains in spider webs, this genus frequently is observed eating pollen of many different plants.