Asian Longhorned Beetle

Scientific Name: Anoplophora Glabripennis
Common Names: Asian Longhorned Beetle, Asian Longhorn Beetle, Starry Sky Beetle

Host plants:
The following tree species are considered to be good hosts for the Asian longhorned beetle:

• Maple Acer
• Horsechestnut Aesculus
• Birch Betula
• Plane-tree Platanus
• Poplar Populus
• Willow Salix
• Elm Ulmus

Other susceptible trees include: Ash (Fraxinus, especially green ash, F. pennsylvanica), Silk tree (Albizia), Hackberry (Celtis), and Mountain-ash (Sorbus). A complete list of host species is available from USDA APHIS-PPQ.

Key ID Features:

• The Asian longhorneed beetle is 0.75" - 1.5" long with antennae that are 1 to 2 times its body length.
• Adults are shiny black with irregular white spots.
• Antennae have alternating black and white bands.
• Feet and antennae may have a bluish tinge.
• Adults are active from early summer through mid-fall.
• Adult females dig bowl-shaped holes in the bark, typically about 1/2 inch (15mm) in diameter, to bury their eggs in. These "oviposition pits" often appear orange in color.
• Larvae can grow to be 2.4 inches long (60mm), with many-segmented, off-white bodies and brown mouthparts. They burrow beneath the bark and are rarely seen.
• "Frass" or sawdust/wood shavings may be apparent around the base of infested trees. Severely impacted tree may have exposed wood where larval feeding galleries (tunneling) is visible.

Description of damage:

• Larvae damage the tree by eating away at the outer sapwood, beneath the bark layer, creating hollowed out galleries in the wood.
• Females chew dime-sized oval grooves in the bark to deposit their eggs.
• Exit holes 3/8" or larger in diameter (6-14mm) appear wherever adults have bored out of the tree.
• Sawdust may appear on the ground or on tree branches where adults have exited from the tree.
• Wounds caused by the beetles may ooze sap.

Similar species:
The native whitespotted pine sawyer (Monochamus scutellatus) is also large and black but has less distinct white patches on the wing covers, no bluish tinge on the legs or antennae, and a dinstinctive white spot between the wing covers

The following websites have additional information about distinguishing Asian Longhorned Beetle from similar species:
USDA Forest Service: Asian Longhorned Beetle Identify and Report
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/alb/ident_reporting/identifying.shtm
University of Vermont: Asian Longhorned Beetle Identification
http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/identification/index.html

The content above was solely provided from the Massachusetts Introduced Pests Outreach Project which is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Dept. of Agricultural Resources and the UMass Extension Agriculture and Landscape Program. This information was made possible, in part, by a Cooperative Agreement from the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). It may not necessarily express APHIS' or Mayer Tree Service's views.