These cracked, swollen areas often resemble cankers or galls. Damage is generally 
most severe to shade trees or to trees growing in open stands or along streams. The 
larval galleries and associated stain, decay, and twisted grain cause defect and 
degrade in lumber sawed from infected trees (583). Growing sugar maple in well- 
stocked groups, avoiding overgrazing, and removing and burning infested dead 
limbs and trees before adult emergence in the spring should be helpful in reducing 
losses (1078). Borers in shade trees can be killed by injecting a fumigant into their 
tunnels or by piercing their bodies with a wire pushed into their tunnels. 
The red oak borer, Enaphalodes rufulus (Haldeman), breeds in the trunks of 
living oaks in southern Canada and throughout the Eastern United States, west to 
Minnesota, Iowa, and Texas. In the Central States, red, scarlet, and black oaks are 
especially subject to attack. Adults are light brown with spots of lighter fine hairs, 
and are 14 to 28 mm in length (fig. 128). There are two small tubercles on the disk 
of the thorax and one triangular spot at its rear. The elytra are notched at the apex, 
and the sutural angles are produced into spines. 
Eggs are deposited singly on living trees over 5 cm in diameter in bark crevices 
or beneath lichen patches during June and July. Young larvae bore directly into the 
phloem, and they feed there during the remainder of the summer, excavating cave- 
type burrows 10 to 15 mm square. The larvae spend the winter in these burrows and 
continue their phloem feeding in the spring. In early summer, they bore into the 
wood and direct their tunnels obliquely upward in the sapwood and straight upward 
in the heartwood for distances of 15 to 25 cm. The second winter is also spent in the 
larval stage with pupation occurring in the spring. The life cycle requires 2 years in 
the Central States with adult emergence in the odd-numbered years. Granular frass 
pushed out from points of attack and wet spots caused by sap leakage are evidence 
of attack (539). 
A high percentage of the large oaks in the Eastern, Southern, and Central States 
are attacked by this species, resulting in serious defects and serious degrade in the 
timber. The loss in grade can amount to 40 percent of the current tree value, which, 
at 1980 prices, is about $80 per 5.7 cubic meters for factory-grade lumber in terms 
Courtesy J. D. Solomon, South. 
Hardwood Lab; Stoneville, Miss. 
Figure 128.—Adult of the red oak borer, Enaphalodes 
rufulus. 
291 
