Spots, legs and antennae
Location: Belmopan, Belize
December 22, 2011 1:45 pm
Hi! As always, I love perusing your site. I found this guy on my screen and have no idea what it is. The screen mesh is 1/2”, so is body is about 1”. Pretty neat, whatever he is!
Signature: Cindy
Ivory Marked Beetle
Hi Cindy,
Despite the yellow color of the markings, we believe this is an Ivory Marked Beetle or Four Marked Ash Borer, Eburia quadrigeminata, or at least a member of the same genus. Most of the individuals on BugGuide have lighter markings, though one mounted specimen from West Virginia has markings similar to your beetle.
1
¶ Posted 23 December 2011 § ‡ ° A bug to identify (imagine that!)
Location: Cedar Hill, Texas (just outside of Dallas)
December 1, 2011 2:24 pm
Hello,
I came across your website and I’m hoping you can help identify this bug I found in my house today.
I’m sure I’ll butcher the terminology here, but what you can’t see from the picture is that the bug has a good set of protruded or external mandibles.
Also, it was traveling with another of its kind that I have yet to catch.
Thanks for your help!
Signature: Samuel Thomas
Hickory Borer
Hi Samuel,
This is one of two species of Borer Beetles in the genus Megacyllene, and we suspect it might have entered your house in firewood and then emerged in the warmth of the home. Larvae of the Beetles spend their entire larval stage boring in wood, eventually pupating and then emerging as adults when conditions are right. We suspect this is a Hickory Borer, Megacyllene caryae, and not its look-alike relative the Locust Borer, Megacyllene robiniae. Locust Borers generally emerge in the fall while Hickory Borers emerge in the spring. Here is a photo of a Hickory Borer from BugGuide. The adult beetles will not harm your home, its furnishing nor its inhabitants.
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¶ Posted 05 December 2011 § ‡ ° Is this a Fire-colored beetle?
Location: Midlothian, Virginia
November 25, 2011 9:17 pm
Found this bug crawling across the carpet on night. It’s legs made a clicking sound as it walked. Not quite sure what it is. It’s about 1 inch long.
Signature: Grant
Tile Horned Prionus
Hi Grant,
This is a Tile Horned Prionus, Prionus (Neopolyarthron) laticollis. These root borers are generally sighted in July and August, so a November sighting is unseasonably late, however, BugGuide indicates the season as “April to November (Northeast).” Perhaps it emerged from firewood that you brought indoors, which is often the case with the various insects that have wood boring larva because the warm indoor temperatures trigger an early emergence.
¶ Posted 27 November 2011 § ‡ ° What about this one, What is it?
Location: 12° 3’ 45.67” North, 86° 18’ 51.88” West (Nicaragua, Managua, El Crucero)
November 7, 2011 10:32 pm
I saa two of these flying insect crawling on a tree in my front yard.
When I got near to take pictures one of them flew towards me and bagan circling me.
Signature: Sergiortc
Bumelia Borer
Hola Sergiortc,
This Longhorned Borer Beetle looks to us like the Bumelia Borer, Plinthocoelium suaveolens, a species found in warmer portions of the United States according to BugGuide. Insects have no respect for international borders, and the range might be greater than in indicated on BugGuide. We suspect this is the same species or a closely related species.
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¶ Posted 09 November 2011 § ‡ ° Hopefully not a borer
Location: South Africa, Johannesburg, Randburg
November 6, 2011 3:28 am
Hi, Hope you can help me in sunny South Africa. Our Leapard Tree (caesalpinia ferrea) all of a sudden started to die, only the one, and on this one we found a bunch of the attached bugs!, are these a type of borer?. I hope there little guys are not the reason for my trees lack want for life…
Signature: A little desperate
Longhorned Borer Beetle
Dear A little desperate,
Your suspicions that this is a type of borer beetle are correct. This is one of the members of the Longhorned Borer or Longicorn Family Cerambycidae. We wanted to try to identify the species, and our initial search brought us to a photo of Ceroplesis capensis on the Biodiversity Explorer website. It looks similar to your individual, but since Ceroplesis capensis has four red stripes, it is most likely a different species. We searched the genus name and found an image from a South African Postage Stamp that is named Ceroplesis militaris, and it looks very similar to your individual.
South African Postage Stamp
The iSpot website also has an image identified as a Cape Longhorn Beetle in the genus Ceroplesis that looks very similar to your individual. We are relatively confident we have the species correct, and since this is definitely a Longhorn Borer Beetle, it might have been responsible for the demise of your tree.
Longhorn Borer Beetle
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¶ Posted 06 November 2011 § ‡ ° BEATLE?
Location: NORHTEAST TEXAS
October 25, 2011 2:11 pm
DEAR BUGMAN I SPOTTED THIS BEETLE IN THE RIVER BOTTOMS OF THE RED RIVER OUTSIDE OF TEXARKANA TX
Signature: ERIC BATES
We prefer Tupelo Borer
Dear Eric,
The first time we ever saw a Bumelia Borer, Plinthocoelium suaveolens, we were aghast at its tropical beauty. We prefer the name Tupelo Borer. You can read about the Tupelo Borer on BugGuide.
1
¶ Posted 25 October 2011 § ‡ ° What is this bug?
Location: Ile de France, France
October 22, 2011 10:31 am
Hello,
I took this picture in july in a meadow and I have yet to figure out what it is.
Thank’s in advance!
Signature: NK
Spotted Longhorn
Dear NK,
This is one of the Longhorned Borer Beetles in the family Cerambycidae, commonly called Bycids among entomophiles. We believe it is one of the Flower Longhorns in the subfamily Lepturinae. We hadn’t much hope that we would be able to come up with a species for you, but as luck would have it, we believe we have correctly identified your beetle as Leptura (or the anagrammatical Rutpela) maculata based on this image from the Worldwide Cerambycidae Photo Gallery. According to BioLib, the species is called the Spotted Longhorn.
¶ Posted 23 October 2011 § ‡ ° Unknown Borer Beetle
Location: Rocky Mountain House, AB, Canada
October 20, 2011 12:24 am
I saw this beetle at the front entrance to the Visitor Center at Rocky Mountain House National Park in Alberta in June. I took the picture and went inside and asked if anybody could tell me what it was. One person walked outside and said it was a June Bug and to be careful as it may bite, then stomped on it. It doesn’t look like a June Bug as I remember growing up in Colorado. It has very much the shape of a Banded Alder Borer. Maybe 40 mm including antenna. Also, if you look closely around the thorax, does it have an infestation of lice?
At the Canadian border this week, I picked a brochure titled ”DON’T MOVE FIREWOOD”. Prominently displayed on the front of the brochure is, I think, a picture of this beetle, implying that it is some kind of invasive species, but it doesn’t identify it. What is it?
Signature: R. Reed
White Spotted Sawyer with Phoretic Mites
Dear R. Reed,
Your beetle is one of the native Longhorned Borers, specifically Monochamus scutellatus, the White Spotted Sawyer which is named for the white scutellum, the triangular shaped marking at the base of the elytra or wing covers. According to BugGuide, other common names include Longicorne noir in French speaking Canada and the intriguing names Oil Sands Beetle and Tar Sands Beetle. Here is the BugGuide explanation for those names: “The local (to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada) common names of Oil Sands Beetle and Tar Sands Beetle are due to the attraction of this insect to oil sands. Apparently the attraction is the scent of bitumen, chemically similar to compounds released by the diseased or damaged coniferous trees where they are attracted to lay their eggs.”
The infestation you mentioned are actually Mites, and we were at first uncertain if they were parasitic Mites or opportunistic Mites using the beetle for transportation purposes, a phenomenon known as phoresy. We found a photo on BugGuide of a White Spotted Sawyer with Mites, but no explanation. Additional research led us to an online article on the Canadian Entomologist website with the lengthy title: “REVIEW OF MITES OF THE GENUS MUCROSEIUS (ACARI: MESOSTIGMATA: ASCIDAE) ASSOCIATED WITH SAWYER BEETLES (CERAMBYCIDAE: MONOCHAMUS AND MECYNIPPUS) AND PINE WOOD NEMATODES [APHELENCHOIDIDAE: BURSAPHELENCHUS XYLOPHILUS (STEINER AND BUHRER) NICKLE], WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF SIX NEW SPECIES FROM JAPAN AND NORTH AMERICA, AND NOTES ON THEIR PREVIOUS MISIDENTIFICATION.” The article begins: “Six new species of Mucroseius having adult females phoretic on adult sawyer beetles of the genus Monochamus are described,” and that was sufficient to indicate that these mites are interested in the beetles for transportation purposes, though we are curious as to the intricacies of the relationship between these organisms. Alas, we have no time to delve deeper.
We are somewhat troubled by your experience at the Visitor Center at Rocky Mountain House National Park in Alberta in June. We can’t help but to wonder if the person who misidentified this Sawyer, mistaking it for a June Bug and promptly stomping on it was a park employee. That does not seem like appropriate behavior for a national park employee at a visitor center. We suspect it was more likely another tourist. The brochure on firewood is noteworthy. Even native species can have their range expanded through human actions.
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¶ Posted 20 October 2011 § ‡ ° 
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