Pest Management Professional, April 2012
technical Continued from page 43 ants Prenolepis imparis or any other small invasive ant One can only imagine what is being referred to until an on site inspection and verifying identification of specimens are performed The ambiguous term worm continues to be a favorite of customers Worms can turn out to be the larvae of Indianmeal moths Plodia interpunctella or millipedes Myriapoda Diplopoda that have made themselves odious during their migrations and intrusions in and on buildings Sometimes true earthworms Annelida Haplotaxida do make their way into buildings at or below the foundation line particularly during heavy rains and flooding conditions The name thousand legger often is used by callers Interestingly that very term is the English translation of the Latin root composite name millipede In truth millipedes have 94 to 750 legs depending on the species but never approaching one thousand legs On occasion customers will confuse the issue further by using the term thousandlegger to refer to centipedes Myriapoda Chilopoda Centipedes which have just one pair of legs per segment instead of the two pair per segment sported by millipedes exhibit a range of 18 to 300 plus legs depending on species This number does not include the specialized first pair of legs called forcipules located just behind the head which Figure 3 Varied carpet beetles and their larvae often are mistaken as bed bugs by the general public serve as venom claws Amusing terms for the common house centipede Scutigera coleoptrata include running eyelash running eyebrow and scary worms with lots of long legs The list of pest colloquialisms goes on but the take home points are 1 become familiar with arthropods having multiple ambiguous names used by clientele 2 share your knowledge base with trainees and customer service people so they can better determine what is being described by prospects and customers calling in perceived pest problems and 3 be prepared to authenticate a pest problem by performing a validating inspection and exacting identification before deciding what measures to implement PMP Wegner can be reached at gerry wegner@ varmentguard com 44 April 2012 Pest Management Professional mypmp net
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