Are longhorn beetles beneficial or pests? Understanding the true identity of longhorn beetles in one article

Longhorn beetles are the general term for insects in the family Cerambycidae, suborder Polyphaga, order Coleoptera. They have chewing mouthparts and very long antennae, often exceeding the length of their bodies. There are over 20,000 species worldwide. Both larvae and adults mostly prefer to live on trees, such as mulberry, willow, poplar, citrus, and pine, where many longhorn beetle species reproduce. Let's take a look below at whether longhorn beetles are beneficial or pests!

Are longhorn beetles beneficial or pests?

Longhorn beetles are major pests in forestry production, crop cultivation, and building timber. Longhorn beetles are mainly pests of woody plants, boring into trunks, branches, and roots during the larval stage. Some harm herbaceous plants, with larvae living inside stems or roots, such as the chrysanthemum longhorn beetle and the squash vine longhorn beetle. A few species, such as the cotton boll longhorn beetle, harm cotton bolls. There are also a small number of species whose larvae do not live inside plant tissues but instead feed on roots in the soil, such as the large-toothed and curved-toothed sawyer beetles, and grass longhorn beetles.

What do longhorn beetles eat?

Longhorn beetles are phytophagous insects, known to feed on pollen, tender bark, tender twigs, leaves, roots, tree sap, fruits, fungi, and more, with different habits. Flower longhorn beetles often feed on pollen, while grooved-tibia longhorn beetles often damage tender bark, tender twigs, and leaves. Longhorn beetles are major pests in forestry production, crop cultivation, and building timber, harming most pines, cypresses, willows, elms, walnuts, citrus, apples, peaches, and tea, some cotton, wheat, corn, sorghum, sugarcane, and hemp, and a few timber, buildings, houses, and furniture.

What types of longhorn beetles are there?

1. Tiger longhorn beetles: Tiger longhorn beetles are pests, insects in the genus Xylotrechus, family Cerambycidae, order Coleoptera, mainly including the conspicuous tiger longhorn beetle, mulberry tiger longhorn beetle, grape tiger longhorn beetle, and green poplar tiger longhorn beetle. Adults appear in summer and live in mid-altitude mountain areas.

2. Citrus longhorn beetle: The citrus longhorn beetle is a longhorn beetle endemic to Japan, China, and South Korea. It can harm many trees such as poplar, willow, elm, London plane, jujube, and chestnut, and is also a major pest of crape myrtle, plane trees, and citrus.

3. Sawyer beetles: Sawyer beetles are insects in the genus Prionus, family Cerambycidae. Their main host plants are conifers, Pinus, Cunninghamia, Chamaecyparis, Quercus, Fagus, and others. They are distributed in Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Taiwan, China, and other places.

4. Slender longhorn beetles: Slender longhorn beetles are insects in the genus Necydalis, family Cerambycidae. Their main host plants are fir, spruce, linden pine, fish-scale spruce, and other Pinus plants. They are distributed in Northeast China, Zhejiang, and other places, and abroad in the Soviet Union, Korea, Sakhalin, Japan, and other places.

5. Flower longhorn beetles: Flower longhorn beetles are insects in the subfamily Lepturinae, family Cerambycidae. Their bodies are nearly square-shaped, with short heads and thoraxes, and relatively flat and wide elytra. Females are noticeably broader than males. The head width is less than the pronotum, the antennae do not reach the end of the elytra, and the fourth segment is shorter than the third or fifth segment.