Stout's hardwood borer

Stout's hardwood borer is a black, hairy beetle shaped like a little tube. It spends most of its life hidden inside wood. A grown-up beetle is about 1 to 2 centimetres long.

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Fun facts
The mother chews a tunnel into wood and lays her eggs inside it.
Its young can stay inside the wood for more than 20 years before they come out as beetles.
Sometimes a grown beetle even crawls out of wooden furniture.
It usually picks dead or dying trees, such as oak, maple, redwood and fruit trees.
It has travelled to new places hidden in wood that people ship around.
Most asked questions about Stout's hardwood borer
?Can a beetle come out of wooden furniture?
Yes. The young of Stout's hardwood borer can grow inside wood, and sometimes a beetle crawls out of a piece of furniture.
?How long does Stout's hardwood borer live inside wood?
At least a year, and sometimes more than 20 years before it comes out as a beetle.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Polycaon stoutii
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Bostrichidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Bostrichidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Black polycaon, Stout's branch borer
Where the facts come from
- Polycaon stoutii (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Sarah McCaffrey, Museum Victoria. CC BY 3.0 au, 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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