Template:Did you know nominations/Anthrenus scrophulariae

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 21:08, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Anthrenus scrophulariae edit

  • ... that besides feeding on carpets, the larvae of the common carpet beetle can destroy preserved museum specimens? Source: "It is the larval stage that causes damage. Textiles, carpets, and fabrics will be peppered with irregular holes, while museum specimens will be eaten away, often leaving a fine dust around or beneath the specimen."
  • ALT1 ... that besides feeding on carpets, the larvae of the common carpet beetle can destroy dried insects in collections?

5x expanded by Cwmhiraeth (talk). Self-nominated at 10:23, 6 September 2017 (UTC).

  • I'll take this one. Review coming shortly. (Mentioning it here now so that other nominators who need a QPQ don't accidentally review the same DYK nom....) SnowFire (talk) 15:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
  • @Cwmhiraeth: Looks mostly fine (5x confirmed, neutral, didn't close paraphrase)... but, for the hook... I think "preserved museum specimens" might be a bit obscure as far as a "broad audience" goes, and I had to read the article & sources a little more closely to verify what exactly it meant (preserved insects, not these Beetles specifically nor other random museum pieces). Maybe spell it out a little more directly? "can destroy preserved museum insect specimens?" or "can damage and destroy preserved insects in a museum's collection?" perhaps? Other alternatives welcome.
Also, I took the liberty of updating the caption on the picture in the article - it's a bit misleading as is, since it's another type of beetle larva in the picture. (Edit: Although, I suppose the caption description does say it isn't sure if it's Verbasci or scrophulariae. Is it possible to know for sure? Seems kinda ugly to say "this is larva of some type of carpet beetle, not sure which!) SnowFire (talk) 16:12, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Regarding the caption, the image blurb states "Larval form of Demestidae beetle Anthrenus verbasci or A. scrophulariae (probably ?,", so we don't know which species it is, but it's probably the latter, as I understand the statement. Anyway, I thought it best to just say "carpet beetle", which is correct for both. With regard to the museum specimens, the source doesn't state what precisely it attacks. It might for example feed on stuffed birds or mammals, so I don't like to say insects in the hook. I will do some searching around and see if I can find a source that specifically mentions insects. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
@SnowFire: I have now added a reference specifically about dried insects being attacked and have added ALT1. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:24, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
LGTM, preferring ALT1. SnowFire (talk) 18:31, 6 September 2017 (UTC)