There, wedged into narrow channels carved into the wood, were tiny black larvae the ... she accidentally squished a small black beetle. Across western North America, in millions of acres of ...

also known as black fire beetles, firebugs, or wood-boring beetles. Fire chaser beetles are usually the first to reach the scene, beating the firefighters and other first responders to the chase.

But the woodpecker prefers its mature and old-growth trees to be snags — because it loves to eat the wood-boring beetles that flock ... and large-scale drought- or beetle-induced mortality events.

“The beetles do make a difference,” says Hans Cornelissen at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Researchers already knew that, by killing trees, insect infestations in forests ...

The infestation has primarily impacted box elder trees, but California sycamore, coast live oak, arroyo willow, red willow, and black cottonwood ... The beetles tunnel into the wood and introduce ...