Elaphidionoides incertus (Newman), the mulberry bark borer, a species that 
closely resembles the twig pruner, breeds in the outer bark of living mulberry trees 
in the Eastern United States. Infestations have also been recorded in chestnut cak 
and pignut hickory. It does not cause serious damage. 
Elaphidion mucronatum (Say), the spined bark borer, breeds in the dead 
branches of various hardwoods in the Eastern United States. Adults are dark brown, 
irregularly clothed with fine brown hair and are from 13 to 19 mm long. Eggs are 
deposited beneath bark scales, and the larvae feed beneath the bark during the first 
year of their lives. During the second year, they bore in the sapwood. Wood used in 
making rustic furniture is often damaged. 
Desmocerus palliatus (Forster), the elder borer, breeds in elder wherever it 
grows in the Eastern United States. Adults are bright, metallic blue with nearly all 
of the basal half of the elytra yellow, and are from 18 to 26 mm long. The pronotum 
is much wider than long and is constricted at the apex; the wing surfaces are densely 
and coarsely punctured. Eggs are deposited in crevices of the bark at the base of the 
stem. The larvae feed in the roots and base of their host, eating out the pith and 
filling their mines with coarse, rather fibrous frass. The larval period lasts 2 to 3 
years. Heavily infested plants may be seriously injured or killed. 
Dorcaschema wildii Uhler, the mulberry borer, breeds in the living branches of 
mulberry and Osage-orange in the Southern and Central States. The adult is dark 
brown and from 16 to 22 mm long (fig. 136). The body is covered with fine gray 
hairs except for small bare punctures scattered over the surface. Each wing cover 
has a light-brown stripe along its outer margin. 
In the Deep South, adults appear as early as mid-May. Eggs are deposited in 
niches chewed in the bark. Young larvae feed between the bark and wood, destroy- 
ing irregular 2- to 8-cm? patches of cambium. After about | to 3 months they bore 
into the wood, constructing galleries that angle upward and inward for about 5 cm 
and then bend back toward the surface. These galleries are close together and often 
overlap. The winter is spent in the larval stage, and the life cycle varies from | to 2 
years. Suppressed and fire-damaged trees are preferred, but vigorous, healthy trees 
are also attacked occasionally. Individual branches and even entire trees may be 
completely girdled and killed. Trees that recover usually have large scars on the 
trunk (//26). The smaller but related species, D. alternatum (Say), is commonly 
found in trees infested with the mulberry borer. The larvae feed in dead and dying 
branches of mulberry, sometimes attacking green limbs that have been slightly 
injured. 
Aneflomorpha subpubescens (LeConte), the oak-stem borer, occurs in the 
Eastern, Southeastern, and Central States. It breeds in small living oak and chestnut 
seedlings from | to 3 cm in diameter, and occasionally in the branches of larger 
trees. The adult is narrow, elongate, light brown, clothed with semierect fine brown 
hairs, and 17 mm long (fig. 137). There is a stout spine on each of the third and 
fourth segments of the female antennae, and the tips of the elytra are notched and 
bispinose. 
Eggs are deposited at leaf bases near the tops of seedlings and sprouts. The larvae 
bore into the center of the stem and tunnel downward, mining out the wood as they 
feed. Section after section of the stem is cut off as the larvae proceed toward the 
base. Frass is extruded through a single row of small holes cut through the bark to 
the outside. During late summer the full-grown larva burrows to the base of the 
main stem and often into a root. Here it constructs a pupal cell between two wads of 
fibrous frass. The stem is usually cut off at the ground line. There appears to be one 
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