Powderpost Beetles Holes
You ll probably never see the adult beetles because they shun light.
Powderpost beetles holes. True powderpost beetles lyctidae damage is characterized by. If you are purchasing wood ask if it has been kiln or air dried. Depending on the species of beetle the frass can either be extremely fine like flour or baby powder or slightly gritty like cornmeal. Frass is a mixture of powderpost beetle larvae excrement and miniscule wood particles that falls out of the exit holes the adult insects make as they emerge.
Always inspect wood prior to purchase. Their emergence holes are round and about the size of a pinhead. The powdery dust feels like flour or fine talc and often accumulates in small piles beneath or beside emergence holes. Lyctids bostrichids and anobiids.
A fine dust like powder similar to talcum powder is pushed from the holes and often is the first sign of attack. Presence of extremely fine flour like powder falling from the surface holes. Like other powderpost beetles bostrichids create circular 1 8 1 4 inch holes in wood. So they are only active for a brief moment.
Lyctid powderpost beetles attack only wood products manufactured from hardwood broadleaf trees such as oak ash walnut hickory poplar or cherry. These holes are adult emergence holes and cause cosmetic damage to finished wood surfaces. The frass left by other wood borers usually contains pellets and has a course texture and a tendency to stick together. All leave wood peppered with pinholes.
Second if you read our powderpost beetle control article you ll learn the holes you re seeing are exit holes. Powderpost beetles are a group of seventy species of woodboring beetles classified in the insect subfamily lyctinae. These beetles along with spider beetles death watch beetles common furniture beetles skin beetles and others make up the superfamily bostrichoidea while most woodborers have a large prothorax powderpost beetles do not making their heads more visible. Do not purchase wood with damaged surfaces or with present exit holes.
Their wood powder is more meal like than lyctid powder and tends to remain tightly packed in the holes and feeding galleries of the larvae. Wood infested with powder post beetles contains many round holes called shot holes that are 1 32 to 1 8 inch in diameter. Pupae that are fully developed will exit infested lumber and in this process they create the holes you see. Powderpost beetles require at least 20 moisture to thrive so use only wood that has been dried as much as possible.
Lyctid powderpost beetle holes are very small about 1 16 inch the lyctid powder post beetle exit holes are much smaller than anobiid.