Hopefully this will only be of academic interest, not something you ever experience. I was over at the luthier's several months ago when someone called asking if he had a 1/2 size rental violin on hand to rent. He pulled an old case out, checked the violin and bow. The bow had most of the hair eaten off by a bow hair bug, so he'd have to rehair the bow before renting the outfit.  He recently loaned me a luthier book, "A Luthier's Scrap Book", by H.S. Wake (published 1970, still in print), and I found a section on the bow hair bug that I found interesting.

"In answer to a question regarding the little bug or insect that gets into violin shops and eats bow hair; it comes into the shop in old violin cases.

Some customers bring their fiddles to the shop in the most broken down and dirty old cases together with a couple of bows with loose and broken hair all over the place. They also bring their cute little monster that eats the hair--the bow hair bug.

I've seen this little rascal in action and once captured one alive and studied it under a magnifying glass. He's about the size of a pin head and appears to have a semi-hard shell, sort of egg shaped, and he closes up like a tortoise when you touch him. I found him in a child's fiddle case and he was buried in the hair at the tip of the bow. The child's mother said that the hair in the bow kept breaking and would I put in some GOOD hair.

It appears that they only thrive in violin cases that are not kept clean, and whenever you open the case and see a lot of bow hair hanging loose you know that our little friend (ouch!) is in there somewhere.

Now to get rid of him, take the case outdoors and brush it out well, especially in the corners, following up with a vacuum cleaner cleaning and leave the case out in the fresh air for several hours. A light spray with insecticide will finish the job on the case.

Cut the old hair from the bow and keep an eye out for the bug--he's very likely there somewhere. Burn or bury the hair, don't just throw it in the wastebasket. Now when the bow is rehaired it should be fine and should last for quite awhile.

The bug is very slow moving so you don't have to worry about him running away, if you're hunting for him.

Note: Since writing this I have had an opportunity to examine the bow hair bug under a microscope and was very surprised at what I saw--the body of the insect is just one mass of long and short spines--almost an exact replica of a tiny porcupine."