Males are mostly black.
Larvae are white or cream, cylindrical, with dark heads, and legless. The cane may recover, but will remain crooked. The Raspberry Horntail is different from the raspberry cane borer and the rose stem girdler, which are grubs of beetles. Damage from the raspberry cane borer appears later, in mid-June to July, and can be identified by two rows of punctures around the cane about 4 to 8 inches below the wilted tip. The rose stem girdler is found mostly east of the Mississippi and in Utah and Colorado, most commonly on species roses, especially rosa rugosa and rosa hugonis, rarely on garden roses.