The markings on the Flower Longhorn Beetle can be very striking with colours of black and yellow, green, red, or black. These beetles are extraordinary flower pollinators and are in a family characterized by their long antennae which can be as long as their bodies. On the detrimental side is the fact that the larva of many of these beetles can cause a lot of damage by boring into trees.
The food source for these beetles has very little food value, and it can take several years for the larvae to mature. During this time, some types of flower beetle grubs can do major damage to trees. On the other hand, they are very beautiful to look at and do great service as plant pollinators after morphing into adult beetles. There are a large variety of flower longhorn beetles on Vancouver Island.
These are small to medium-sized beetles. The pronotum and head are narrow and flexible, while the antennae are long. Flower longhorns are usually colourful, but sometimes they are black, dark green, red, yellow, and most always iridescent.
The adults are quite useful as pollinators when they visit flowers to feed on pollen or nectar, but the larvae feed on the moist dead wood of various trees and can do a fair bit of damage before morphing into adults.