Insect Picture of the Day

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A few weeks ago, my friend Sandra Tayler called me to tell me that her neighbor had a bug-infested tree, and if I wanted pictures I needed to come over before they could get back from the garden store with pesticides. Can I just say that friends who have their priorities straight like this are awesome?

This is a locust borer, a name which has nothing to do with locusts or grasshoppers. This is a beetle that has evolved to the point where it can only feed and reproduce on one species of tree: black locust. (There’s another beetle that can only feed on honey locust.) Now, black locust is a weed tree that used to only grow in the mountainous regions of the Eastern United States, and so this critter was pretty well hemmed into its niche, happily boring 8mm holes into the trunks and branches of locust trees. But one day a landscaper discovered that rich people can’t tell the difference between weed trees and exotic plants, and since locust doesn’t look half bad and is pretty hard to kill, it became an instant favorite for landscaping jobs throughout North America.

As the black locust spread across the continent, so did the black locust borer–mostly by living on and laying eggs in the trees that were being shipped around the country. They are now quite happy to be regarded as a significant pest with a range that spans the continent.