Featured Article Summary #239

The huhu beetle (Prionoplus reticularis) is a large longhorn beetle found only in New Zealand. Adults can grow up to about 5 cm, live for around two weeks, and cannot eat; they are active at night and are strongly attracted to light. The Larva" target="_blank">larvae live in dead tree wood, where they feed mainly on gymnosperms like rimu and Monterey pine, and they can take one to two years to fully mature. Larvae can grow to 50–70 mm and are high in protein and fat, which is why people, including Māori, have eaten them either raw or cooked in a hāngī. The larval gut contains many microorganisms that may help it digest wood, and because the beetle lives in logs, exports require treatments such as fumigation or heating to stop it spreading. The beetle also has predators and egg parasites, and it was first scientifically described in 1843 by Adam White from a specimen collected in the Bay of Islands. The first huhu beetle specimen used for scientific classification was collected by British botanist Andrew Sinclair during a voyage to the Bay of Islands and expeditions with other British botanists. Sinclair’s specimens were donated to the British Museum, and in 1843 Scottish zoologist Adam White formally described the species, with the type specimen kept at the Natural History Museum in London. Later, in 1880, Thomas Broun described the larva and pupa stages and updated the species account in his Manual of the New Zealand Coleoptera. A 2023 study used shotgun genomic sequencing to study the evolutionary history of Australian Rhipidocerini longhorn beetles. It found that Prionoplus belongs to the Rhipidocerini tribe and is the earliest split among the sequenced species, indicating it branched off before the other (all Australian) species studied. The Māori word huhu comes from an Austronesian root, *bukbuk*, related to Malayo-Polynesian words for wood- and rice-infesting weevils. In Māori, the meaning broadened to include the beetle’s larvae, whose stages are called tunga haere/tunga rākau, then tātaka when it stops boring and sheds its skin. After that it develops wings and legs (pepe or pepe te muimui) and finally becomes the adult that flies to reproduce (tunga rere). Adult huhu beetles are easy to recognise because they are large (about 5 cm long) and dark brown, with a fuzzy look from thick brown hair-like covering on the head and thorax. They have very long antennae (about three quarters of their body length), curved sharp mandibles, spines on parts of their legs, and brown wing covers with three pale yellow lengthwise veins and a net-like pattern. Male antennae are longer than females’, and females have an unusual rare case where one was recorded developing an extra pair of ovaries.