*4.6.8 Confused flour beetle (*Tribolium confusum *Jaqcquelin du Val, 1868 Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)*

*Distribution*: The confused flour beetle, is cosmopolitan, native to Africa, and commonly found in cooler places.

*Host range*: It is commonly found in flour mills, granaries, storehouses, wheat fields, dried flowers, seeds, or dried museum specimens [21].

*Bionomics:* The confused flour beetle is reddish-brown, shiny, long, oval, flattened, having four segmented antennae, with head and upper parts of thorax densely covered with small punctures and with ridges on wing covers (**Figure 8**). Eggs are small white in color, laid by gravid females inside boxes, barrels, and other food containers. These sticky secretions help them to adhere to the flour as well as with the walls of containers. Eggs are transformed into long, worm-like larvae which are cylindrical and wiry in appearance. The pupal stage is small, initially white and later yellow and brown, where adult beetles emerge shortly.

**Figure 8.** *Dorsal view of adult of* Tribolium confusum.

*Damage symptoms*: Being secondary pests they do not directly attack the grain bur when the grain is already infested, they show their effect. These pests generally give an unpleasant odor and also due to their presence, the growth of mold is encouraged.
