16 September 1919 The larvae can live in dead wood for over 20 years, before coming out of their burrows as beetles

The curious beetle with the very long antenna, four times the length of its body, which was found in a garden at Walkden, is one of the long-horned or longicorn beetles, Acanthocinus ardilis. It is an interesting but rather destructive species, for its larvae bore in timber, and, like others of this family, live for many years. Woodmen and carpenters call it the timberman or timber-measurer, for it spreads its long antennae like a pair of compasses when it settles on a trunk. Its larvae feed in firwood and it is not uncommon in many parts of Scotland. Its presence in and near Manchester is due to introduction in timber, often in pit-props.

How long the larvae live in their burrows under purely natural conditions is not known, but some of the family still remain in dead wood for twenty or more years; one case is recorded of a beetle emerging forty-five years after the tree was felled. Beetles have come out of burrows in furniture, and one coleopterist had a larva for years working in a hoot-tree; American longicorns have emerged from wood which had been sent to the Manchester Museum. Apparently the retarded growth of a larva in dead wood is due to the small amount of nourishment it derives from the dry, sapless food, but this merely delays its growth and prolongs its life and does not kill it. When walking our timberman often trails his longhorns behind, and then, as if feeling his way, stretches out one to its full extent and then walks as far as the tip, finally trailing that horn behind and reaching out with the other. The horns are useful tactile organs, and when a rival male is encountered the bad-tempered beetles strive to nip off one another’s antennae.

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