Outdoors Brag Board

Locust borer

Posted on: September 13, 2007 12:07 pm

Brag Description:

An adult locust borer, (Megacyllene robiniae) photographed while walking on glass raised above a blue background. I found this beautiful beetle in my garden while picking corn in early morning recently. Its physical attractiveness is tarnished by its reputation for the damage caused by its larvae in trunks of black locust trees. Both the beetle and black locust are native to the eastern USA and were unintentionally introduced to Idaho and other areas of the west. The generic name for black locust is “Robinia,” from which the beetle’s species name “robiniae” is derived. Like the locust borer, many insects are host specific, which is why mixed species of forest trees suffer less damage than do monocultures. Mal Furniss, Moscow