Longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) are represented by more than 36,000 species worldwide and feed on diverse plant types from trees to grasses. This diversity can make it difficult to identify pest species that often have a questionable origin. It is important for forest and economic health officials to diagnose potential invaders because these foreign beetles may feed on or infect plants outside of their known hosts. This website provides resources for common diagnostic situations and sets of taxa. A second edition to include larval morphology is in preparation. The included factsheets allow the user to confirm their identification in the key and find further guidance. Three user-friendly matrix-based Lucid keys are provided: one to conifer-feeding genera if the host is known, a second to commonly intercepted non-native genera for a specimen with an unknown host (this key includes hardwood feeders), and a third focused on worldwide conifer-feeding Monochamus species. These resources will provide an identification to distinguish native from non-native taxa for intercepted samples, especially those from conifers.
In our conifer-feeder key, we treat all genera (88) of northern hemisphere longhorned beetles in Lamiinae, Cerambycinae, and Spondylidinae known to feed on solid conifer tree species. Restriction to this group allows comprehensive treatment in the key. The Lepturinae and Prioninae are not comprehensively treated as they are a small percentage of interceptions and few feed on the solid wood used for shipping. This key includes native USA genera due to the fact that they often co-infest wood packaging with foreign insects.
The invasive genera key treats the most frequently encountered cerambycid invaders. The key includes regularly intercepted conifer and hardwood-feeders (74 genera, including some in the conifer key). These taxa were chosen based on analysis of the USDA Port Information Network database (Haack 2006Haack 2006:
Haack RA. 2006. Exotic bark- and wood-boring Coleoptera in the United States: recent establishments and interceptions. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 36: 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1139/X05-249) and the USDA Agriculture Risk Management database. The key has worldwide geographic coverage for critical invaders, including the top genera intercepted in the USA from major geographic regions (Africa, Asia, Pacific, Europe, South America, Caribbean, and Central America).
Our last key is to the species of Monochamus, the pine sawyer beetles. This allows the diagnosis of all the Monochamus species feeding on conifers, which have been shown to form a clade (Gorring and Farrell 2023Gorring and Farrell 2023:
Gorring PS and Farrell B. 2023. Evaluating species boundaries using coalescent delimitation in pine-killing Monochamus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) sawyer beetles. Molec. Phylogenetics & Evolution 184: 10777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107777). Seventeen species are included.
Edition 1
Authors: P.S. Gorring, S.M. Smith, A.I. Cognato, A.J. Redford
Content last updated August 2024
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