NATURE NOTES ~ Burrowing Beetles
Posted by Interactive Desk on Aug 05 2009, 10:10 AM
When my wife went to bring in the laundry after dark, she called me to identify a two-inch-long beetle that was
crawling on a shirt. It was a male stag beetle (Lucanus capreolus) with jaws almost 1/3-inch long.
It looked dangerous, but the jaws are used for sexual display rather than eating. She was amazed at the size of this
beetle and asked me why we don’t see its young anywhere. I told her it is because they burrow into and feed on
decomposing trees and stumps.
Types of Burrowing Habits
Many beetle larvae and some adults burrow and are rarely seen unless one purposefully goes looking for them.
These beetles burrow underground, in punky wood, bore into trees, burrow beneath the bark of trees, bore into the
stems of herbs, or produce galls.
Carnivorous ground dwellers, such as found in the family Carabidae, may be monochromatic like the ground beetles
that can be found beneath logs and rocks as both larvae and adults. These feed on many species of injurious pests
and should be returned to the soil without injury when found. The larvae of the brightly colored caterpillar hunters
feed below ground, while the adults comb foliage after dark searching for caterpillars and many pest insects.
The herbivorous beetles, such as click beetle wireworms and scarab grubs, are among the most destructive crop
pests. They eat seeds, cut off roots and stems, and bore holes in larger stems, roots, and tubers. Adult click beetles
also feed on plant materials, but are less destructive than the larvae.
Most lawn grubs are scarab beetle larvae that were introduced from Asia and Europe: Japanese beetles (Popillia
japonica), Oriental beetles (Exomala orientalis), Asian garden beetles (Maladera castanea), and European chafers
(Rhizotrogus majalis). While underground larvae eat plant and grass roots—sometimes producing bald spots in
otherwise well manicured lawns, the adults eat pollen, nectar, leaves, and stems—often becoming pests as they
damage flowers and defoliate entire plants.
Punky Wood Feeders
The stag beetles and bess beetles (Odontotaenius disjunctus) lay their eggs in punky wood of logs or stumps. The
larvae are grub-like and take several years to grow to full size, which could be as long as two and a half inches and a
half inch in diameter. After pupating over their last winter, the adults emerge in spring or summer, mate, and
reproduce. Adults often feed on plant saps and fruits.
Tree Borers
Long-horned beetles of the family Cerambicidae produce flattened grubs that bore through live or dead trees, eating
the wood, and riddling it with their tunnels. There are many native wood-boring beetles, but the recently introduced
Asian long-horned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) is extremely aggressive, attacking and killing trees in
residential neighborhoods as well as forests. New York City has quarantined several portions of the city by requiring
that wood cut in these areas be burned, thus restricting the spread of the beetle larvae.

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