Phyllophaga crenulata (Froelich) occurs throughout the Eastern United States. 
Adults are brown, with a covering of short, recumbent hairs, and are about 17 to 20 
mm long. They feed on a wide variety of hardwoods, especially persimmon, 
hickory, basswood, willow, birch, and buckeye. The larvae are often serious pests 
in coniferous nurseries in the Lake States. 
Phyllophaga forsteri (Burmeister) occurs generally throughout the Eastern 
United States. Adults are reddish brown and shiny, have dusky heads, and are about 
16 mm long. They feed on a wide variety of hardwoods such as beech, birch, elm, 
magnolia, maple, tupelo, walnut, and willow. There are also reports of their feeding 
on pine. The larvae are often destructive in nurseries in the South. 
Phyllophaga prunina (LeConte) occurs throughout the central part of the United 
States east of the Rocky Mountains. Adults are chestnut brown to black and about 
18 mm long. They feed on various hardwoods, such as beech, elm, walnut, 
basswood, and willow. Feeding on pine has also been observed. The larvae are 
sometimes injurious in nurseries in the Lake States. 
Phyllophaga implicita Horn occurs mostly in the Mississippi and Ohio River 
Valleys. Adults are orange-brown to brown (with the head and thorax darker), shiny, 
and about 14 to 18 mm long. They feed on beech, dogwood, elm, sycamore, 
tupelo, walnut, willow, basswood, maple, and other plants. The larvae killed 
millions of seedlings in nurseries in Iowa in the thirties. 
Phyllophaga micans (Knoch) is found over most of Eastern United States. Adults 
are brownish black, and from 15 to 17 mm long. They feed at night on female 
flowers and needles of pines. Although damage is not common, one report from 
Louisiana cites that 14 percent of the pine conelets were killed by this scarab (547). 
The genus Polyphylla is represented by a number of species in the Eastern United 
States, a few of which are sometimes injurious. The beetles are somewhat larger 
than those of the genus Phyllophaga. A few species are entirely brown while the 
remainder are brown- or white-striped. They are distinguished further by their 
massive antennal clubs, which consist of six or seven extremely long, thin, flat, 
parallel, leaflike plates. 
The larvae of Polyphylla variolosa Hentz have caused heavy losses in coniferous 
nurseries in the Northeast. The larvae of P. occidentalis (L.) have been observed 
feeding on the roots of pine seedlings, but they prefer the roots of grasses. They 
would appear to be potentially harmful in nurseries and plantations. P. hammondi 
LeConte occurs in the western part of the Central States and has the interesting 
habit of depositing its eggs in rotten wood. 
The genus Serica contains a number of species, the adults of which closely 
resemble those of the genus Phyllophaga except for their much smaller size and 
their regularly spaced, elytral striae. They are usually less than one-fourth as large 
as May beetles. The adults are sometimes abundant enough to cause noticeable 
defoliation in hardwood stands. The larvae have also been known to cause damage 
in heavily infested nurseries, but they are usually not very destructive. Adults 
emerge from mid-May to mid-August but are usually most abundant in June. The 
life cycle requires 2 to 3 years. Common species include S. sericae (Iliger), which 
is often abundant; S. tristis LeConte, which has been known to defoliate spruce in 
plantations in southern Canada; and S. vespertina (Gyllenhal) and S. intermixta 
Blatchley. 
The genus Dichelonyx is represented in eastern North America by many species. 
The beetles are small, about 6 to 12 mm long, and are often brightly colored. A 
distinguishing characteristic is the presence of two spurs on each middle and hind 
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