Here are dorsal and lateral views of the only specimen I’ve ever collected of Neoclytus approximatus—one of North America’s most uncommonly encountered longhorned beetles. I collected it on dead Pinus echinata in southeastern Missouri (Carter Co.) way back on June 7, 1987 (just over 34 years ago!), but I believe that is only an incidental record and not a larval host for the species considering that the species has been recorded from primarily the U.S. Great Plains (North Dakota south to Texas, east to Iowa and Missouri, and west to Colorado)—a region mostly devoid of native pines.

What it does breed in remains a mystery. I’ve seen a number of specimens collected in the city of St. Louis, Missouri in the 1930s with U.S.D.A. eugenol-baited Japanese beetle trap, although my own efforts with Japanese beetle traps in St. Louis during the 1980s turned up no specimens. Another Missouri specimen bore a label saying “Monarda” (a genus of flowering plants called “bee balms”)—perhaps referring to the flower of the plant (MacRae 1994). This latter record may suggest the species breeds in herbaceous plants rather than woody plants—which some longhorned beetles are known to do, and its apparent distribution across the Great Plains makes this idea even more tenable.

Van Pelt (2007) provides the only other clue to host for the species, citing it “on shrubs” in Big Bend National Park. Until somebody figures out the host for this species, it is liable to remain one of the most elusive species of North American Cerambycidae.

Literature Cited

MacRae, T. C. 1994. Annotated checklist of the longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae and Disteniidae) known to occur in Missouri. Insecta Mundi 7(4) (1993):223–252 [pdf].

Van Pelt, A. F. (ed.). 2007. Inventory of insects of Big Bend National Park, Texas. Report to Big Bend National Park, 204 pp.

© Ted C. MacRae 2021