• Spotted Pine Sawyer / Whitespotted Sawyer (Monochamus scutellatus): A large, native dark beetle with very long antennae and a distinct white spot behind the head. People often confuse it with the invasive Asian longhorned beetle, but the native sawyer has that characteristic single white dot.
• Ponderous Borer (Ergates spiculatus): A very large, reddish-brown or brownish beetle with spiky margins on the thorax. Large specimens found around urban areas like Boise are frequently ponderous borers or pine sawyers.
• Banded Alder Borer (Rosalia funebris): A striking black-and-white banded longhorn beetle found in the region.
The Ponderosa Borer beetles are my local DC-10 in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are really cool on the ground. When they take to the air I feel my soul exits my body through my butt.
A big old Ponderosa was hovering around our FTX site looking for a site to land, and in one of those glorious no words needed ESP moments, a couple of our Air Assault trained NCOs started doing helicopter EZ landing hand and arm signals for it and it obliged landing right in the middle of our group, where everyone else caught on to the joke and immediately ran and went prone in 360 security around it. One of my favorite military memories.
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u/ldr97266 8h ago
Oh yes you do!
• Spotted Pine Sawyer / Whitespotted Sawyer (Monochamus scutellatus): A large, native dark beetle with very long antennae and a distinct white spot behind the head. People often confuse it with the invasive Asian longhorned beetle, but the native sawyer has that characteristic single white dot.
• Ponderous Borer (Ergates spiculatus): A very large, reddish-brown or brownish beetle with spiky margins on the thorax. Large specimens found around urban areas like Boise are frequently ponderous borers or pine sawyers.
• Banded Alder Borer (Rosalia funebris): A striking black-and-white banded longhorn beetle found in the region.