Experiments are checking both the adults' feeding interests and the willingness of females to lay eggs on a tree. A sampling of techniques, both low and high tech, are revealing the daily life of Asian long-horned beetles. Michael Smith, who works full-time on the species at the Agricultural Research Service's Beneficial Insects Research Laboratory in Newark, Del., is surveying the current scientific literature. Smith goes to China himself to videotape beetle behavior, and he's hopeful he can find points in the insects' life cycle that would be easy to disrupt. Mating among these beetles means more than a one-twig stand.
Males hang around for hours, guarding their mates from other suitors.
Females spend considerable time laying their eggs. The female chews a nice, comfy groove into tree bark and then injects a single egg the size of a rice grain into the inner bark. Smith has seen a female devote an hour to a single egg, but he's not sure that's representative. Yet Chinese scientists report that an Asian long-horned beetle lays only about 35 eggs during her 42 days of adult life. Beetles spend most of their lives hidden inside wood, chewing their way out only when they mature into dark, glossy adults.