Webbing Clothes Moth

Tineola bisselliella — the webbing clothes moth — is one of about 3,000 species in family Tineidae and one of the most economically destructive textile pests worldwide. The species' biology is centered on a remarkable adaptation: the larvae can digest keratin, the structural protein of wool, fur, hair, leather, silk, and feathers. Almost no other animal can digest keratin (which is why hairballs in cats are a problem and why most predators avoid hair-and-feather meals). Clothes moth larvae have specialized gut conditions (high pH, reducing environment, sulfite-secreting cells) that break the disulfide bonds in keratin and release the constituent amino acids for absorption. Adults of T. bisselliella have no functional mouthparts and live only 4-6 days — long enough to mate and for the female to lay 40-50 eggs on suitable substrate. The substrate must be undisturbed (the species cannot tolerate vibration or frequent handling), keratin-rich (wool clothing, fur coats, silk garments, taxidermy mounts, museum collections, animal-hair felts), and ideally soiled with skin cells, perspiration, or food spills (which provide additional protein and B-vitamins). Eggs hatch in 4-10 days; larvae feed for 4-30 weeks depending on temperature and substrate quality, building tunnels of silk webbing through the substrate as they go. The damage to museum textile collections is estimated at over $1 billion annually worldwide. The closely related casemaking clothes moth (Tinea pellionella) builds a portable silk case it drags around as a mobile shelter.