The yellow-spotted longicorn beetle is an East Asian longhorn beetle, gray-black with scattered yellow spots and antennae two to three times its body length. Its larvae bore into fig and mulberry trees. It is not established in the United States, but it is watched as an invasive pest: it has spread across northern Italy since 2005 and has been caught in imported wood in Canada.
Appearance
- Appearance
- About 0.6–1.2 in (14–30 mm) long, slender and cylindrical. The body is covered in fine gray hairs with yellow spots on the wing covers and yellow stripes along the sides of the head and thorax. The antennae are about 2.5–3 times body length in males and about twice in females.
Where it lives
- Range
- Native to Taiwan, mainland China, the Izu and Ryukyu islands of Japan, and Korea's Ulleungdo island; whether the beetles on mainland Japan are native is still unclear. Introduced and established in Lombardy, northern Italy, where it covered more than 670 sq mi (1,750 km²) by 2021. In North America it has only been intercepted, in wood imported from Asia into Canada.
Behavior
- Diet
- Adults chew young leaves and gnaw the bark of host trees.
Life cycle
- Larva
- Females gnaw small wounds in the bark and lay eggs one at a time. The white, legless larvae feed under the bark and then tunnel into the wood, pushing out sawdust-like frass.
- Caterpillar food plants
- Mainly figs and mulberries (the mulberry family). In Italy it has become a serious pest of figs.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
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