True to their common name, the larvae of the pole borer bore in trees and structural lumber in contact with wet ground. This is a robust beetle that can reach 20mm (this specimen = 15mm.) Highly resembles a stag beetle, but antennae are not clubbed.

Cerambycidae is a cosmopolitan family of beetles characterized by their extremely long antennae, which are sometimes up to 2.5 x longer than the beetle's body. Many longhorns are serious agricultural pests, as their larvae have the unfortunate habit of boring wood. The Asian Longhorn beetle, for instance has been responsible for the preventive destruction of thousands of trees in Northern Illinois and other locations in the United States.

Most Cerambycidae larvae feed within dead, dying or even decaying wood, but some taxa are able to use living plant tissue. Girdlers (adults of the Onciderini, larvae of genera in the tribes Methiini, Hesperophanini and Elaphidiini) sever living branches or twigs, with the larvae developing within the nutrient-rich distal portion. The larvae of a few species move freely through the soil, feeding externally upon roots or tunneling up under the root crown. [1]

Most adult cerambycids, particularly the brightly colored ones feed on flowers and pollen, and as such can be important pollinators of some flowering plants. Other species consume sap, leaves, blossoms, fruit, bark or fungi. [3]

Order Coleoptera: Beetles are the dominant form of life on earth: one of every five living species is a beetle. Coleoptera is the largest order in the animal kingdom, containing a third of all insect species. There are about 400,000 known species worldwide, ~30,000 of which live in North America.  Beetles live in nearly every habitat, and for every kind of food, there's probably a beetle species that eats it.
Beetles first appeared during the lower Permian period, about 270 mya
Beetles Index | Longhorns | Leaf Beetles | Soldier | Blister | Lady | Scarab