Cerambycidae: Acanthocinus aedulis female percing on Scotch pine. Most of the time the females search for places to oviposit, usually in Tomicus piniperda bark beetle entrance holes. Note the ovipositor on the end of the female which she uses to place eggs down the hole. The egg hatches and the larva makes its way into the gallery system from which it is able to tunnel on its own in the phloem, killing any bark beetle larvae that lay in its path. The cerambycid grub does not require insect larvae (it may provide a little extra nutrition) but feeds predominantly on the phloem and later in the sapwood of the tree.

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Images © 1996 by John A. Byers, Chemical Ecology.