Rhagium mordax - a longhorn beetle - Family: Cerambycidae

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Rhagium mordax - a longhorn beetle
© Roger Key/English Nature

This is a yellow beetle with brown and black mottling and two eye-like spots on its wing-cases. For a 'long-horn' beetle, it has relatively short antennae.

Adults are seen between May and July on open-structured flowers, particularly hawthorn and umbellifers, and the larvae are found in the very rotten wood of most species of broad-leaved trees, especially just under the bark. This beetle is common in woods and hedgerows in most parts of Britain and is most often seen in garden orchards or hedgerows in country areas.

Food

Wood-feeder as larvae, on very soft decaying, long-dead wood of fallen trees or stumps where they form tunnels, usually just below the bark. Adults feed on nectar and pollen of flowers.

Plants

Hawthorn, Hogweed, Midland hawthorn, Wild carrot