Cottonwood borer
The cottonwood borer is a big longhorn beetle with a bold black and white pattern. Its black feelers are as long as its body or even longer. It is one of the biggest beetles in North America.
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Fun facts
Its white patches are made of tiny masses of hair.
The mother chews little pits at the bottom of a tree to lay her eggs in.
The larvae can take up to two years to grow up inside the tree roots.
When it is ready, the new beetle chews its way out of the root and digs up to the surface.
It is the only species in its group, called Plectrodera.
Most asked questions about Cottonwood borer
?How big is the cottonwood borer?
It can be up to 4 centimetres long and over 1 centimetre wide.
?What does the cottonwood borer eat?
Its larvae eat the wood of cottonwood trees, and adults nibble leaf stems and bark.
?Is the cottonwood borer harmful?
Not to people, but its larvae can kill young cottonwood trees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Plectrodera scalator
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Cerambycidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Cerambycidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Cottonwood borer (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Razarax ( talk ). CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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