Testing multispecies pheromone blends of longhorned beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) in southern Texas.

This article reports on a field experiment conducted at 14 sites in southern Texas to evaluate the attraction of cerambycid beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) to two blends of known aggregation-sex pheromones combined with ethanol, compared to ethanol alone and a control. The study captured 846 beetles representing 51 species across the subfamilies Cerambycinae, Lamiinae, and Prioninae, including several rare or regionally restricted species such as Leptostylopsis lutea, Lochmaeocles cornuticeps cornuticeps, and Thryallis undatus. Statistical analyses showed that the pheromone blends plus ethanol significantly attracted multiple cerambycid species, with blend 2 (a 5-component lamiine pheromone blend) plus ethanol generally attracting more species than blend 1 (a 6-component cerambycine and lamiine blend) plus ethanol or ethanol alone. The findings demonstrate the utility of pheromone-baited traps for surveying cerambycid diversity and suggest that pheromone trapping can reveal broader distributions of rare or poorly known species in the Tamaulipan Biotic Province along the Texas–Mexico border.