Listen to the murmer of the cottonwood...

[fancycwabs]

Mowing the grass this morning I noticed that I appear to have a beetle infestation at the base of my willow tree. A little research indicates that the critter in question seems to be the cottonwood borer, which is a beautiful bug, but is gonna kill my willow tree, so I'm off to Home Depot to get some pesticide, unless someone can get me a workable organic solution in the next half hour.

I'll try to take some photos before I kill the fuckers--they really are some lovely and interesting bugs.

UPDATE: Photographs taken, and will be uploaded eventually. Home Depot suggested a product by Bayer for extermination.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Here's a picture--fairly close to actual size:

Comments

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

Creepy little buggers that are similar but not identical to yours are eradicating large swaths of our forests up this-a-way.

The Asian long horned beetle has white markings and its horns are stripey.

Lucky - you have to cut down the tree and burn it to get rid of those little fuckers.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, the stuff I bought says it takes care of the long-horned beetle, as well--I'm hoping I don't have to resort to tree elimination, as I only have two trees in the yard.

However, use of a pesticide like that is probably not viable (or environmentally safe) for large swaths of forest. Treatment for my one medium-sized tree was $25; something with a two-foot diameter would be twice that, probably, and would probably kill some of the critters that do valuable service by turning dead trees into sawdust, as well.