Finding small butterflies in your kitchen cabinets is a warning sign you shouldn’t ignore. These are often food moths , insects that can infest pasta, flour, rice, cereals, biscuits, dried fruit, and other foods stored in the pantry.
Seeing one fly doesn’t necessarily mean the infestation has just begun. The larvae can, in fact, be hidden inside the packages for a long time before the adult insects appear.
Where do pantry butterflies come from?
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Food moths can enter your home through already infested food. Eggs and larvae are very small and can be found inside or near packaging, making them difficult to spot when you buy them.
Once they enter the pantry, they can move from one product to another and lay new eggs.
For this reason, finding a butterfly near the kitchen cabinets is a good reason to carefully check the entire pantry.
How to tell if you have an infestation
The first step is to check especially dry foods.
You must carefully observe the packaging of:
Flour;
pasta;
rice;
cereals;
cookies;
dried legumes;
dried fruit;
spices;
animal feed.
In addition to larvae, cobweb-like filaments , small lumps, cocoons, or unusual residues may appear inside the packages.
Even seemingly unopened packaging can be contaminated, so it’s important to carefully check foods that have been stored for a long time.
The first thing to do: completely empty the furniture
To eliminate moths, it is not enough to kill the moths you see flying.
