Where it came from
China and the Korean peninsula.
How it got here
Arrived in solid wood packing material from China. First discovered in Brooklyn in 1996 boring into Norway maples, then found in Amityville and Massapequa on Long Island in 1999, and later in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, and South Carolina.
What it does to the ecosystem
Larvae bore deep into the heartwood of maples, birches, elms, willows, horse chestnuts, and other hardwoods, structurally weakening and eventually killing them. Unlike most borers it attacks healthy trees. If it escaped into the northern hardwood forest, it would threaten the maple syrup and fall foliage economies.
What it costs
The eradication effort in New York has meant cutting down and chipping thousands of infested trees, treating tens of thousands more, and hundreds of millions of dollars over more than two decades. USDA declared the beetle eradicated from Islip in 2011 and from Brooklyn and Queens in 2019. On July 30, 2026, it lifted the quarantine on another 7.4 square miles in the towns of Oyster Bay, Babylon, and Huntington, but other parts of Nassau and Suffolk remain under quarantine, and the eradication program is still working there.
Don’t confuse it with
- Whitespotted sawyer (native). The native sawyer has a single white spot at the top of the wing covers and duller, bronzy coloring. The Asian longhorned beetle is glossy jet black with many bright white spots and banded antennae.
How to identify it
Large glossy black beetle with white spots and very long black-and-white banded antennae; dime-sized perfectly round exit holes in trunks; sawdust piles at the base.
What to do
Report immediately to the state or USDA. Do not move firewood.
On Long Island
Not gone yet. As of the July 2026 USDA update, parts of Nassau and Suffolk are still under federal quarantine, so check the USDA quarantine map before moving firewood, logs, or branches from maples and other host trees. Each lifted area is real progress that depends on people reporting. Report any glossy black beetle with white spots and long banded antennae.
Worth knowing
- Adults chew perfectly round exit holes about the diameter of a pencil, and the sawdust they push out piles in branch crotches.
- Females chew oval pits in bark to lay each egg, so trunks look pockmarked.
- August is Tree Check Month nationally because that is when adults are most visible.
