| Home | Kingdom Animalia | Phylum Arthropoda | Class Insecta | Order Coleoptera | Suborder Polyphaga | Family Cerambycidae | Common Name: Long-Horned Beetles |  |
Cerambycidae
Long-Horned Beetles
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Introduction:
Cerambycids are highly variable in size, color, and vestiture. They are characterized by their unusually long antennae; most have antennae longer that half the length of the body - frequently much longer than the length of the body. The antennae usually insert in a conspicuous emargination of the compound eyes. The larvae, commonly known as round-headed wood-borers, are commonly elongate, robust, cylindrical, and have strongly reduced thoracic legs (commonly apodous).
Cerambycids are highly variable in size, color, and vestiture. They are characterized by their unusually long antennae; most have antennae longer that half the length of the body - frequently much longer than the length of the body. The antennae usually insert in a conspicuous emargination of the compound eyes. The larvae, commonly known as round-headed wood-borers, are commonly elongate, robust, cylindrical, and have strongly reduced thoracic legs (commonly apodous).
Adult Diagnosis:
antennae are mostly body length or longer
compound eyes emarginate
tarsal formula 5-5-5, but pseudotetramerous (4th tarsomere reduced and concealed by lobe of the 3rd)
antennae are mostly body length or longer
compound eyes emarginate
tarsal formula 5-5-5, but pseudotetramerous (4th tarsomere reduced and concealed by lobe of the 3rd)
Ecology:
Adults are diverse in their feeding habits. Some feed on pollen and flower parts, on green parts of plants, on wood and bark, or not at all. Females usually oviposit under bark, within crevices, or in slits created by gnawing with mouthparts (e.g. “girdlers”). Larvae feed and develop beneath bark or in wood of trees or, in the case of Lamiinae, in the stems of herbaceous plants. While some cerambycids are responsible for significant economic damage to wood, most play a critical role in the functioning of forest ecosystems by processing and breaking down dead wood and cycling nutrients through the system.
Adults are diverse in their feeding habits. Some feed on pollen and flower parts, on green parts of plants, on wood and bark, or not at all. Females usually oviposit under bark, within crevices, or in slits created by gnawing with mouthparts (e.g. “girdlers”). Larvae feed and develop beneath bark or in wood of trees or, in the case of Lamiinae, in the stems of herbaceous plants. While some cerambycids are responsible for significant economic damage to wood, most play a critical role in the functioning of forest ecosystems by processing and breaking down dead wood and cycling nutrients through the system.
