Spotted Longhorn Beetle

Fascinating facts about the Spotted Longhorn Beetle

• At 13-20 mm long (0.51-0.79 in), the spotted longhorn beetle's bold black-and-yellow pattern tricks predators into thinking it's a wasp. The head and pronotum are dark-brown, while elytra are yellowish, with black dots and stripes, rough imitations of wasps, which probably gives them some protection from birds. This tiny masquerade lets the beetle wander openly among flowers, feeding on pollen and nectar, without being swatted away.
• Spotted longhorn beetles spend two to three years hidden inside dead wood before emerging as adults, a life hidden from sight that contrasts sharply with their brief two-to-four-week adult stage. The species completes its life cycle in two to three years, spending most of their lives as larvae. The adults can be encountered from May to August; they are short-lived, only living for two to four weeks.
• Across Europe, the spotted longhorn beetle, recorded from Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sardinia, Serbia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. This distribution paragraph lists every country where it has been found.
• The spotted longhorn's larvae are not picky eaters; they chew through the wood of many deciduous trees, from hazel and beech to chestnut and hop-hornbeam, and even oak, birch, poplar and willow. The larvae are polyphagous in the wood of deciduous trees, mainly feeding on Corylus avellana, Fagus sylvatica, Castanea sativa and Ostrya carpinifolia, as well as on Quercus, Carpinus, Salix, Alnus, Populus and Betula species.
• Scientists have named dozens of varieties of the spotted longhorn, each bearing the original describer's name and year, like Rutpela maculata var. calcarata Olivier, 1790 and var. subundulata Depoli, 1926. The varieties list includes names such as Rutpela maculata var. calcarata Olivier, 1790, Rutpela maculata var. maculipes Podaný, 1950, Rutpela maculata var. nigricornis (Stierlin, 1864), Rutpela maculata var. seminotata Kaufman, 1947, Rutpela maculata var. subbinotata Podaný, Rutpela maculata var. subsinuata Depoli, Rutpela maculata var. undulata (Mulsant, 1839), Rutpela maculata var. subexternepunctata Podaný, Rutpela maculata var. parumnotata Podaný, Rutpela maculata var. subspinosa Fabricius, 1792, Rutpela maculata var. subundulata Depoli, 1926, Rutpela maculata var. subdisconotata Podaný, Rutpela maculata var. sinuata Fabricius, 1792.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Spotted Longhorn Beetle

As the sun warms the forest floor, the Spotted Longhorn Beetle emerges, its iridescent elytra glimmering like polished jewels as it takes to the air with a languid, fluttering flight. With an effortless elegance, it alights upon the tender shoots of its host plant, the willow, where it will spend its days grazing on the sweet sap and leaves with an insatiable hunger. In this fleeting dance between beetle and tree, we witness a testament to the intricate, interconnected web of life that binds our natural world together.

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