Greetings! The cover image below should link to the most recent version of the online guide to the Pacific Northwest Lepturinae. If you are listing this as a resource on another insect-related website, please link to this landing page, as the PDF is updated periodically. - Phil Schapker Mendez
Download PDF version 2.2 (2026). Contains updated Appendix to flower records.
Back cover image: Anastrangalia laetifica on yarrow, Achillea millefolium, in Albany, Oregon.
About: The lepturines, also known as the "flower-visiting longhorn beetles" are often (sometimes) encountered by hikers and nature enthusiasts who look for them in the woodlands and meadows where they live. They can be elegant, colorful, and clumsy little creatures that are a delight to observe and poke, and yet much less well-known than their more common flower-dwelling friends, the bees, wasps, and butterflies.
Of the 86 species & subspecies in the Pacific Northwest only 2/3rds have been caught on flowers. Some are nocturnal and mysterious, others known only from a handful of museum specimens. There are PNW lepturines that engage in mimicry, produce potent antifreeze, silk, and poison, and species with enigmatic host plant relationships. The most common host plants are Pinus and "unknown."
Much remains to be explored and understood about our PNW lepturine fauna. I hope that this little guide, still a work in progress itself, is a useful aid in your studies.
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Phil Schapker Mendez is an Alternative Education middle school teacher in Albany, OR, and has taught insect biology at the University of Oregon. He is an opportunistic volunteer at the Oregon State Arthropod Collection at OSU.
Robert Pennington is an artist and wetlands ecologist who lives in Monmouth, Oregon. He designed the screenprint featured on the front cover while neglecting other duties in Phil's 2018 summer insect biology class.