Creepy nest found under our couch

Hello, I hope you can help me! My husband and I recently found what looks like a bug nest under our couch. It almost looks like a dung beetle nest, but we live in Illinois! It is a round, hard ball and looks like it is made of dung or mud and sawdust. I cracked it open a bit and found some tiny dead insects, about the size of one of those colored pinheads. They are a reddish brown color.

We often clean under our couch and have never seen this before!! We are really shocked and nervous about it. Please let me know if you have ever seen anything of the sort.

Thank you so much!

Sarah

P.S. the ball appears to have some seeds in it as well.

I am at a loss to explain the ball-like object (I've never seen anything quite like it), but the insects that I can make out are spider beetles. These are very common with nearly a world-wide distribution; they can infest a wide variety of materials, but seldom are more than nuisance pests. See http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/spider-beetles for more information.

Thank you so much for the reply. We are also truly confused! The ball does appear to be some sort of dung (the worksheet you sent mentions excrement as a food source), but I have not idea how it could have gotten in the house. We are gardeners but never take any manure or anything into the house! We occasionally have foster cats but this particular ball seems to be made mostly of vegetarian material like seeds and plant fibers. It also doesn't have a noticeable smell (gross I know!)

At least now we know what the bugs are. I am going to continue investigating. Glad to know they aren't destructive critters!

how puzzling!
Maybe one of the cats barfed up a nice round blob of chewed grass, then some beetles made use of it...

Kentucky Blue Grass? ;-)

too funny, greenthumb!
wonder if it came from a dried flower arrangement, 'potpourri' mix, or some like dried flower decor ?

The color of that ball almost makes me think the bugs made a home out of couch lint/fabric. The blue color reminds me of some of the fabric on the underside of my couch. I believe it's the fabric the company uses to put in between the wood frame and the external fabric your couch is made of to protect the external fabric (no idea what they would call it...lol).

Extremely strange thing for sure. Is it possible that the underside of your couch had fabric similar to this color?

If the blue ball-like object had been formed by insects, it would not have been by the ones (spider beetles) found associated with it, as they do not construct structures of any kind.