Hylotrupes bajulus
Not every new addition to the biodiversity in our garden is special, beautiful or even very welcome. This is Hylotrupes bajulus or European house borer (Huisboktor in Dutch). It has the habit of feeding on dead wood and its larvae can bore extensive tunnels into wooden beams. Their life cycle can be from 2 up to 10 years and during that time they can create much damage to wooden structures. Contrary to one of the popular names, Old House-borer, they do prefer more recent wood that still has some of the resins in it. The original wooden beams in our house date as far back as 1906 and are regularly well impregnated with borer protection so we should be OK for now. Our garage/garden shed might be another matter though but so far the culprit only tried to make its way up my wife's leg which by the way was still of flesh and blood when I last saw it. :-)
Hylotrupes bajulus
Not every new addition to the biodiversity in our garden is special, beautiful or even very welcome. This is Hylotrupes bajulus or European house borer (Huisboktor in Dutch). It has the habit of feeding on dead wood and its larvae can bore extensive tunnels into wooden beams. Their life cycle can be from 2 up to 10 years and during that time they can create much damage to wooden structures. Contrary to one of the popular names, Old House-borer, they do prefer more recent wood that still has some of the resins in it. The original wooden beams in our house date as far back as 1906 and are regularly well impregnated with borer protection so we should be OK for now. Our garage/garden shed might be another matter though but so far the culprit only tried to make its way up my wife's leg which by the way was still of flesh and blood when I last saw it. :-)