334 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 11 
BIOLOGICAL NOTES ON SOME FLATHEADED WOODBORERS 
OF THE GENUS BUPRESTIS 
By H. E. Burke, Specialist in Forest Entomology , Branch of Forest Insect Investiga¬ 
tions, Bureau of Entomology , U. S . Department of Agriculture 
According to Henshaw’s “List of the Coleoptera of America, North 
of Mexico” there are about twenty-one species of Buprestis in the 
United States. During the past fifteen years various members of the 
Branch of Forest Insect Investigations have collected and made 
numerous biological notes on seventeen of the species. The following 
paper is a brief summary of these notes. 
All of the species are woodborers and so far as known are able to 
lay their eggs directly in the crevices of the wood as the young larvae 
can thrive without any bark food. This is not always done, however, 
and eggs are often placed under or in crevices of the bark where the 
larvae can get to the wood easily. 
The observations made indicate that at least two years are passed 
in the larval stage and in many cases from that on up to fifteen or 
twenty years. Probably some larvae from almost every group of 
eggs have retarded development and emerge as beetles from one to 
several years after the main brood. 
The larval characters and biologies indicate that the genus should 
be divided into three groups quite similar to those determined upon by 
Casey in his “Studies in the American Buprestidae” which were made 
from a study of the adult characters alone. The larvae of the first 
group, Buprestis proper, rufipes, laeviventris, confluens, etc., have a 
small rugose hood around the apex of the V shaped marking on the 
dorsal plate of the first segment and very slight rugose markings along 
the groove on the ventral plate. In this group pupation takes place 
in the spring and the beetles emerge soon afterwards. In group two, 
subgenus Cypriacus of Casey, aurulenta, etc., the rugose hood around 
the apex of the Y is much larger and the rugose area along the ventral 
marking is broad. Pupation in this group takes place during the sum¬ 
mer and the beetles remain in the pupal cells until the following spring. 
In group three, subgenus Stereosa of Casey, apricans, etc., there is no 
distinct rugose hood around the apex of the Y but almost the entire 
dorsal plate is rugose as is also the ventral plate. Pupation takes 
place in the summer and the beetles winter over in the pupal cells as 
with group two. 
The species of group one taken as a whole mine more in dead dry 
wood and seldom cause serious injury. Often they are quite bene- 
