Dried Fruit Beetle

Carpophilus hemipterus

Insectalso: Driedfruit beetle, Dried-fruit beetle, Sap beetle

A small sap beetle that swarms to overripe, split, and fermenting fruit, where it feeds and breeds and spreads souring and decay organisms. It is a common nuisance on ripening figs and stone fruit and on dried fruit, building up as the warm season goes on.

🔎 How to spot it

The adult is a small brown to black beetle about a tenth to a fifth of an inch long with clubbed antennae and, on this species, lighter spots toward the tips of the wing covers, which do not quite cover the last few abdominal segments. The larvae are white and reach about the same length when mature. Numbers of small dark beetles inside damaged, fermenting fruit are the sign.

🥀 Damage it causes

The beetles build up on any rotting or fermenting fruit, including figs, stone fruit, grapes, persimmon, apples, and fallen citrus, feeding on the soft tissue. By moving among fruit they spread yeasts and decay organisms that sour and rot the crop, so the indirect contamination is often worse than the chewing. They favor fruit already split, overripe, or injured by other pests.

🛡️ Prevent it

Sanitation is central: pick fruit promptly as it ripens and gather and destroy split, overripe, mummified, and fallen fruit that the beetles breed in. Reducing injuries from birds and other insects gives the beetles fewer entry points. Keeping the planting clean denies them the fermenting fruit they depend on.

🧯 If it is already here

There is no effective spray for fruit already infested, so control rests on sanitation and prompt harvest rather than insecticides. Bait traps using fermenting fruit or dough can capture adults and reduce numbers around a planting. Storing harvested and dried fruit in sealed containers protects it from further attack.

💡 Good to know

The dried fruit beetle is one of a complex of similar sap beetles in the family Nitidulidae with comparable habits, and it is highly prolific, a single female laying on the order of a thousand eggs in her life. It overlaps with the green fig beetle on fallen, fermenting fruit, both attracted to the sugary, yeasty volatiles. Because it carries souring organisms, infested fruit should not be saved.