Borer larvae are slender, white, segmented grubs with brownish heads and rather prominent jaws. These larvae produce the chewing noises and piles of wood-colored sawdust that frequently cause alarm. This sawdust material may be relatively fine or coarse and fibrous. These borers also are responsible for the wide zigzag or meandering tunnels seen beneath the bark and deep in the wood. The tunnels of both groups are oval in cross-section, not perfectly round.
Wood borers are primarily a nuisance.
The noise and sawdust they produce is suggestive of termites and, thus, disconcerting. Because of their long life cycle, borers may be present in wood for a year or longer. They do not emerge and attack healthy trees. No Western species normally recycle in the same wood that produced them. Furniture, wall framing or other seasoned woods are not suitable for wood borer attack.