What Do Longhorn Beetles Eat? A Detailed Look at Their Diet and Food Sources

Longhorn beetles are the collective name for insects of the family Cerambycidae in the suborder Polyphaga of the order Coleoptera, also known as tianshuiniu, bajiaor, niujiaochong and so on. There are many species of longhorn beetles, with more than 40,000 species known worldwide and about 3,550 species in China. They are widely distributed and cause widespread damage, with almost every kind of tree being attacked by different species of longhorn beetles. Let's take a look below at what longhorn beetles eat!

What do longhorn beetles eat?

Longhorn beetles are phytophagous insects, known to have different feeding habits including feeding on pollen, tender bark, tender twigs, leaves, roots, tree sap, fruits, fungi and so on. 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 construction timber, harming most pines, cypresses, willows, elms, walnuts, citrus, apples, peaches and tea, and some cotton, wheat, corn, sorghum, sugarcane and hemp, as well as a few timbers, buildings, houses and furniture.

What harm do longhorn beetles cause?

The larvae of longhorn beetles bore into trunks and branches, affecting the growth and development of trees, weakening tree vigor, leading to invasion by pathogens, and making them easily broken by wind. When the damage is severe, the entire plant dies, and the wood is bored through, losing its craft value. Longhorn beetles bore into trunks, branches and roots during the larval stage, and 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 few 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, grass longhorn beetles and so on.

What kinds of longhorn beetles are there?

1. Tiger longhorn beetle: The tiger longhorn beetle is a pest, an insect of the genus Xylotrechus in the family Cerambycidae of the order Coleoptera, mainly including the dawn tiger longhorn beetle, mulberry tiger longhorn beetle, grape tiger longhorn beetle, Populus cathayana stem tiger longhorn beetle and so on. Adults appear in summer and live in mid-altitude mountain areas.

2. Citrus longhorn beetle: The citrus longhorn beetle is a longhorn beetle unique to Japan, China and South Korea, capable of harming many trees such as poplars, willows, elms, London plane trees, jujubes and chestnuts, and is also a major pest of crape myrtles, plane trees and citrus.

3. Sawyer beetle: The sawyer beetle is an insect of the genus Prionus in the family Cerambycidae. Its main host plants are conifers, Pinus, Cunninghamia, false cypress, Quercus, Fagus and so on. It is distributed in the Northeast, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Taiwan, China and other places.

4. Slender longhorn beetle: The slender longhorn beetle is an insect of the genus Necydalis in the family Cerambycidae. Its main host plants are fir, spruce, larch, jezo spruce and other Pinus plants. It is distributed in the Northeast, Zhejiang and other places, and abroad in the Soviet Union, Korea, Sakhalin, Japan and other places.

5. Flower longhorn beetle: The flower longhorn beetle is an insect of the subfamily Lepturinae in the family Cerambycidae, with a nearly square body shape, short head and thorax, relatively flat and broad elytra, females noticeably broader and larger than males, head width less than the pronotum, antennae not reaching the end of the elytra, and the fourth segment shorter than the third or fifth segment.