Mold-eating pest beetle found in dried shiitake mushrooms from China
Text by Hyodo Kunio (Hyodo Kunio)
How many pest cases can there be? With a single phone call, the pest detective immediately arrives at your door with investigation tools to hunt down the culprit! Food pest control expert Hyodo Kunio is an outstanding "pest detective" who has solved countless pest cases. He published "Pest Detective Case Files: How a 50-Year Pest Control Expert Solved the Bug Crises in Food" One day, I received a package at my Yokohama office; the sender was Mr. S, a friend working at a trading company in Ikebukuro. He had called ahead to let me know, so as soon as I received the package I opened it immediately, thinking it must be "that thing." Sure enough, the box contained sliced dried shiitake mushrooms just imported from China. This was not a seasonal gift for the Ghost Festival, but a "seized item" mixed with many small red insects. A day earlier, Mr. S had opened the packaging of the sliced dried shiitake mushrooms imported from China. To be safe, he first inspected the contents through the plastic bag and felt that something seemed different from usual. At that moment, although he could not tell anything from the product's smell, feel, weight, or color and finish, he just felt something was off……. So he opened the packaging and was about to examine it carefully when he immediately smelled a hint of mold, and it seemed he also saw small reddish-brown insects inside. Wanting a clearer look, he found the insects hiding deep within the product packaging and out of sight. Fearing it would be terrible if the insects escaped, Mr. S grabbed a large handful from where they were hiding and examined it closely. This proved he had not been seeing things: there really were several reddish-brown insects less than two millimeters long inside. Mr. S hoped I could investigate the species of the insects and how they got mixed into the packaging. I brought the sliced dried shiitake mushrooms Mr. S sent close to my eyes for a clear look, and indeed smelled a moldy odor. Looking carefully at those moldy shiitake mushrooms, reddish-brown insects about 1.5 millimeters long had emerged: flat grain beetles. Flat grain beetles love to eat mold. If flour products are stored long-term in a hot and humid environment, they will become moldy and breed large numbers of flat grain beetles. However, "dried shiitake mushrooms" are, as the name suggests, a "dried" product, so the cause of this case surprised me.Dried shiitake mushrooms from China bring an unexpected visitor
Common in shiitake mushrooms, rare in flour - the flat grain beetle
