Longhorn beetles  (Family Cerambycidae)

Cerambycidae contains numerous w00d-boring species, but also a fair number of beetles which mine the stems and roots of herbaceous and semi-woody plants, as well as some seed-eaters. Nearly all Cerambycidae only attack trees that are dead or dying and, commercial interests aside, serve a useful purposein hastening the breakdown of dead wood and the return of nutrients to the soil. Longhorn beetles have typically very long antennae that are as long as, or longer than the body. Usually longhorn beetles will only attack dead or dying trees. In gardens the fig borer is a big problem. Many species are brightly coloured and hairy.

The larvae are fat, hairy legless grubs that bore in dead trees, logs or the pith of herbaceous plants. The larvae are cannibalistic and when a number of young emerge from the cluster of eggs, they devour one another until the survivors are scattered too widely to do further damage to one another. Nutrients in the wood are slowly assimilated and most longhorn beetle larvae grow slowly. The adults of some species are bark-feeders and may cause damage by ring-barking young shoots of fruit trees.

Many long-horn beetles will make a feeble squeaking ar creaking noise upon being picked up. This sound is produced by rubbing the hind margin of the prothorax against a roughened area between the bases of the elytra; the movement can easily be seen if the beetle is observed.