Similar Looking but NOT an ALB

Monochamus scutellatus

Cutting the lawn yesterday I got a scare when I came across the insect pictured above. His antenna are as long as his body. It looks very much like the Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB), which has been found in several western Massachusetts towns.

The ALB is considered an invasive species in North America where it is a serious threat of hardwood trees including; maple, horse-chestnut, birch, poplar, willow, elm, ash, European mountain-ash, London plane tree, mimosa, and hackberry. The beetles cause damage by tunneling within the trunks and branches of trees, disrupting the sap flow and weakening and eventually killing them. The ALB will kill infested trees and if left unchecked it will continue to spread to adjacent host trees with the same end result.

In August of 2008, officials from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed the presence of Asian Longhorned beetle (ALB) in the City of Worcester. To date there have been ~18,000 trees removed in Worcester alone to prevent this destructive pest from spreading to non-infested areas. The removal began in December 2008.

The good news, for us anyway, is that the beetle we found is NOT an ALB but rather a very similar look-alike called the White-spotted Pine Sawyer - we have ourselves a male. White-spotted sawyer is a native species, one of hundreds of different longhorned beetles that you may find in Massachusetts, but not a very common one. It typically attacks pine and fir trees that are already diseased or damaged and should not be a threat to a healthy pine stand. Not too sure what to do with this dude, prolly end up feeding him to the chickens - good protein for a laying hen.

Check out the Asian Longhorned Beetle and look-alikes website.