GARDENING REPORT: The White Spotted Sawyer

They have been flying around and causing quite a bit of disgust by their appearance. What kind of insect are they? Tonight on our garden report Julie Riley from the Cooperative Extension Service, will talk more about these pests.

Julie Riley, UAF Cooperative Extension Service: Well this one's a beauty. Hi, I'm Julie Riley and I wanted to talk about the white spotted sawyer today.

This is a big insect that can pinch you if you rile him up when he lands.

He thinks that you're a tree, because you’re vertical. He's really not interested in biting you. So there seem to be a lot of these around. This is a type of a long horned beetle. It affects trees and bores into trees that are dead, and are not really interested in biting you. But they are a little bit ferocious looking because of their size. I just collected one when I was in Delta Junction because there were a lot of them that day.

So we put the insects in alcohol and bring them into the office to use for teaching.

I wanted to let you know about a great opportunity this coming month, it's an adult bug camp. The bug camp will be taught by Derek Sikes who is the Curator of Entemology at the UAF Museum. So if you're interested in learning more about insects and how to preserve them in the museum’s collection, Derek's class is Friday night, July 12th and Saturday and Sunday the 13th and 14th. You can register with UAF Summer Sessions.

I'm Julie riley, join me next week as we are going to be talking about the Flower Show.