Southern pine beetle
The southern pine beetle is a tiny reddish brown to black beetle, about the size of a grain of rice. It is small, but it works in huge teams. Together these beetles can attack and kill big pine trees.
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Fun facts
A girl beetle picks a tree and sends out a special smell that calls lots of other beetles to join her.
When the beetles drill in, the tree pushes out sticky white resin that looks like popcorn on the bark.
It usually picks pine trees that are already weak, for example after storms.
It has spread north into the north-east United States, where it is a newcomer.
Most asked questions about Southern pine beetle
?How big is the southern pine beetle?
It is only about 3 millimetres long, the size of a grain of rice.
?How do pine beetles kill trees?
They drill under the bark in big numbers and cut off the tree's food and water.
?Is the southern pine beetle dangerous to people?
No. It is harmless to people, it only harms pine trees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dendroctonus frontalis
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Curculionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Curculionidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Dendroctonus frontalis (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 Erich G. Vallery. 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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