Asian long-horned beetle problem

[goosey]

I though Arp might have mentioned this.

It is bad news in Winterwijk (Gelderland, The Netherlands) Despite quarantine procedures and laws in Europe about importing wood which has been untreated, the Asian long-horned beetle - Anoplophora glabripennis was discovered there in a garden last week.
Seven Longhorns have been caught with the help of residents and more infected trees have been found and felled immediately transported to a laboratory for further research.

The beetle and larvae decimate trees and shrubs and are a major threat to green spaces, gardens and nurseries in the area.
To try and prevent the spread "all" tree's and shrubs are to be cut within a 100m radius.

[Pudding4brains]

Hi Goosey,

Well, I wasn't really surprised/shocked by the news as it isn't the first time ...

In 2008 I checked in a damaged bird in an animal shelter in Enschede and was surprised to see a really impressively sized and beautifully coloured long-horned beetle as one of their other house guests. It had been brought in after being found in a playground earlier that day. That also was Anoplophora glabripennis:



As the topic came up on waarneming.nl too last week, I assembled a short list of occurrences in the Netherlands over the past years.

Supposedly A. glabripennis tends to arrive in wood used for packaging Chineese imports (crates, pallets etc), not withstanding international regulations on the treatment of such wood, which seem to be neglected often enough. A. chinensis on the other hand seems to be imported mostly by way of "infected" young ornamental trees for use in our parks and gardens.

Once more than one beetle (so possibly male and female) are out in the wild I'm not at all convinced that the measures taken (kill all trees in a 100m radius, and inspect trees in a 200m radius for some years to come - or some such) are all that effective. As shown, imho, by repetitive occurrence in Boskoop/Westland. The beetles tend to not stray away from their place of birth too much (97% less than 200m), but are also known to easily fly 1.5km if trees of their preference are not around. I'm assuming they would also stray further if mates (of their preference) are not found close to home.

In Italy, I seem to remember from reading up a few years ago, it got out of hand and the beetles are there to stay (chinensis malasiaca I think it was?), causing serious damage to citrus orchards.

Here is some quick and dirty IDing help for the two:


For European standards in long-horned beetles these beetles are positively BIG, we may have only very few that beat it. The well known, biggish Cerambyx cerdo is clearly smaller - both a tad shorter and not quite as wide/plump.

While I was taking photographs I had it walking on my hand and at one point tried to stop it from moving too much for a better shot by holding a hind leg between thumb and the index finger it was walking on. The beetle hissed, opened it's jaws and leaned toward the thumb to have a go at it. I didn't have to think long to decide that the jaws where going to win this, so the thumb chickened away swiftly The beetle was a good sport about it and halted the attack too, the moment its leg was released

Cheers, Arp

[Pudding4brains]

The well known, biggish Cerambyx cerdo is clearly smaller - both a tad shorter and not quite as wide/plump.

Hmmm Going by specifications it seems I may have to correct myself and that C. cerdo may actually beat the Anoplophoras in size, but it certainly didn't seem that way to me. Obviously, with one each, I have not seen enough of both to be able to judge the full range, so my cerdo must have been a small sample. Will check and see if I can come up with a size for that one later ...

[goosey]

Thanks for those images Arp (formerly known as pudding4brains )- what cracking shots and a gorgeous beetle! I did do a gallery search when I posted to see if you had any piccies to use from your Asia visit, and you have actually seen them here in Nederland!
Nice to read/hear a non panic stricken review of some one with first hand experience (excuse the pun ).

I didn't see the waarneming thread (I only look in the gallery and don't join in ), I saw about it on the RTL4 news. Well done for assembling the sightings, I imagine to have the info in one place for reference will prove useful.

[Pudding4brains]

Thanks Goosey,

I just checked on my cerdo images and indeed it must have been a mini-version. From some other rather unsharp shots I could measure along my fingers and resultig size must be around 35mm, sooner under it than over it (32-33mm?). For a beetle specified as around 25-55mm that's not an exeptionally large one.


I was however correct in noting that the Anoplophora must have been slightly larger - which is somewhat soothing as I was getting worried about my memory and size estimating capacities

The cerdo was in turn clearly larger than the the 25mm scopolii I had found last year, so at the time I found it it was clear enough that this was at last the bigger cousin The thought never came up that it was probably a small one at that...

I can't seem to be able to find my originals of Cerambyx scopolii, but I'll rip some of another website and upload here as there is no image in the gallery yet

Cheers, Arp