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Sticker of Grape wood borer
Bug card No. 1988 of 4,939

Grape wood borer

Chlorophorus varius
Name means: “its Latin name means changeable, because its colours and markings vary a lot”
Eats: Nectar and pollenBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The grape wood borer is a longhorn beetle dressed up like a wasp. It is covered in yellow-green fuzz with black bands and a black C-shaped mark. The wasp costume fools birds, but it cannot sting.

Lives in
Most of Europe except the north, Turkey, Iran and the Near East
Length
0.8 to 1.4 cm (0.31 to 0.55 in)
Top speed
about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It only looks like a wasp and has no sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups eat pollen and nectar, especially from flowers like wild carrot. The young grow up inside dead wood.
For real!Photo of Grape wood borer
Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Grape wood borer about 1.4 cm long (0.55 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 12 seconds

How big is Grape wood borer compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its young live inside dead branches of grapevines, maples, oaks, apple trees and other trees.

2

Growing from egg to beetle takes 2 to 3 years.

3

The male has longer feelers than the female.

4

You can see the beetles from May to September on sunny meadows and woodland edges.

you asked

Most asked questions about Grape wood borer

?Can the grape wood borer sting?

No. It looks like a wasp, but it is a beetle with no sting.

?How big is the grape wood borer?

It is 8 to 14 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Chlorophorus varius
Named by
O. F. Müller, 1766
Group
Beetles
Family
Cerambycidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Cerambycidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, Africa

Where the facts come from

  1. Chlorophorus varius (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

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