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What’s this bug?
My husband and I keep finding this little critter inside our home. We live in southern Missouri, close to Springfield, in a very wooded area. I am normally real careful about bringing in firewood in the winter so I don’t end up with a house full of unwanted visitors so I’m not sure how they all got in here. They started showing up around the first of March. Sometimes they just fly up to our windows, I’m not sure if it is for extra warmth or light. When we pick them up they make a little squeaking noise, of course, I would be squeaking big time if someone were throwing me out into the cold too!

This is one of two possible beetles in the genus Megacyllene. It is either the Locust Borer, Megacyllene robiniae, or the Hickory Borer, Megacyllene caryae. We have a very difficult time telling them apart. Locust Borers usually appear in the fall and feed on goldenrod pollen. Hickory Borers are found in the sring. Both have larvae that bore into wood, and they most probably came in on firewood. The warmth indoors sped up the metamorphosis. Since their typical life cycle was altered, we cannot even guess which of the two species this is.

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1. Hickory Borers Mating (April 17, 2008)
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3. Painted Hickory Borer (March 10, 2006)
4. Painted Hickory Borer (April 7, 2007)
5. Locust Borer??? or Hickory Borer???: Emerging from stored firewood (January 26, 2008)