On: Hungary's oldest library fighting to save 100k books from a beetle infestation

[mousethatroared]

Big if. Insect eggs are very often meant to withstand long periods of dormancy.

Anyway, I wouldn't suggest irradiating them either. Just the volume of required handling would ruin them.

[thaumasiotes → mousethatroared]

Yes and no. On the fundamentals, environments never really become oxygen-free, and so it would be unexpected for beetles to have an adaptation to the scenario.

You could have an environment that was consistently oxygen-free, but it would make no sense for eggs laid in such an environment to refuse to hatch there.

[mensetmanusman → thaumasiotes]

Bacterial spores do, so some bugs do for some reason. Probably because of the small % chance variation in the atmosphere. Life is incredibly robust.