The most common prevention methods involve keeping the tree healthy with water and fertilizer, pruning dead or dying branches and protecting trunks of young or newly transplanted trees with nursery wrapping paper. Entomologists typically group the shade tree borers as either roundheaded beetles or flatheaded beetles. As adults, roundheaded borers are cylindrical, hard-shelled beetles, sometimes with contrasting bands, spots or stripes.
Adults can vary in size from a quarter-inch to more than three inches in length.
Their larvae are white to yellowish and rough-bodied. The bodies of flatheaded borer adults are oval in shape, beautifully colored with a metallic sheen. They can be up to an inch in length. The larvae or grubs are a quarter-inch to two inches long and have a pronounced bulging thorax behind the head. This enlarged thorax has horny plates on the top and bottom.