Devon Wildlife Trust The black-spotted longhorn beetle is found throughout most of the UK. They're usually seen in woodlands, or along hedgerows. The adult beetles often visit flowers to feed on nectar and pollen, particularly hawthorns and umbellifers. Female beetles lay their eggs on fallen dead wood, old stumps, or decaying trees. The larvae live beneath the bark, feeding on rotting wood. They can spend two or three years in this stage, before creating a little chamber of wood fibre in which to pupate. They pupate in late summer or early autumn, but the adults stay within their pupal chamber until spring.
How to identify
A mottled yellowish-brown and black beetle. It has two large black spots on its wing cases, with a pale band either side of each spot. The antennae are relatively short for a longhorn beetle.
Black-spotted Longhorn Beetle, Huntacott vallley, Chulmleigh, photo by Grant Sherman 12th May 2024
Devonshire Association Entomology Section The Entomology Section promotes the study and recording of insects and also spiders in the county.
Meetings, talks, exhibitions, publications and field trips are arranged annually across the county of Devon and are suitable for beginners and experienced alike. Field trips are usually held in association with other specialist groups with whom we maintain close links. We also meet with other sections to demonstrate, and learn, about the inter-relationships with other disciplines.
With at least ten specialists in different Orders within the insect class we cater for a wide range of interests. Some of our Recorders are national experts in their field and hence we are the major collective source of entomological expertise in the county.
https://devonassoc.org.uk/organisation/sections/entomology-section/
Devon Biodiversity Record Centre Submit your sightings of Black-spotted Longhorn Beetles and other species in Devon
https://www.dbrc.org.uk/wildlife-sightings/
Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates. We’re actively working to save Britain’s rarest little animals, everything from bees to beetles, worms to woodlice and jumping spiders to jellyfish.
National Biodiveristy Network The NBN Atlas is a collaborative project that aggregates biodiversity data from multiple sources and makes it available and usable online. It is the UK’s largest collection of freely available biodiversity data.
https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NBNSYS0000011004
Wikipedia Rhagium mordax, the black-spotted longhorn beetle, is a species of long-horned beetle. This beetle is found throughout Europe and to Kazakhstan and Russia. Larvae develop in silver fir, hazel, European weeping birch, European beech, and the European chestnut. Ischnoceros rusticus is an ichneumonid parasitoid wasp that feds on Rhagium mordax larvae.
