Have You Seen This Creature in Wood Flooring Before?

Inspector Matt Skowron of The Floor Detective in Lake City, Fla., came across this during a wood flooring inspection:

He had this to say about the creature:

The adult long-horned beetle. (Photo by Shutterstock)“I eventually found three of them in a single 5-inch-wide-by-12-inch-long plank. These larvae are about 1/4 wide and 1 1/4 long. You can see the tunnels they made in the wood as they just chomped away. The consumer played me a video where you can hear them chewing inside the wood. I removed the planks and the critters and put them in a sealed bag. When it was quiet in the office, you could hear them still eating inside the bag!”

It isn’t a common occurrence in wood flooring (Skowron says it’s only the second time he’s ever run into a bug or larva that big in wood), and he wasn’t sure what type of insect it came from. WFB consulted a state entomologist, who identified it as the larva of a long-horned beetle.

Where did it come from? Skowron reports, “There was a rubber underlayment between the flooring and the plywood subfloor and there was no penetration of the rubber. There was no penetration of baseboard or quarter round, as well, so I think the critters came in the wood from the manufacturer.”