Southern and central Europe through western and central Asia.
Fine-art photographic collection
Chlorophorus varius
A wasp-patterned longhorn whose larva spends years converting dead branches into beetle tissue.
About this species
Chlorophorus varius(O. F. Müller, 1766)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Chlorophorus varius is a European and western Asian longhorn beetle with bold yellow-black markings. Adults visit flowers in sunshine, while larvae develop inside dead wood from a wide range of broad-leaved trees.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Cerambycidae · Chlorophorus
Accepted species. A generic longhorn-beetle label is not used as a common name. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe and western AsiaBroad documented range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
What makes this species remarkable?
The yellow bands are formed by dense hairs and create a wasp-like warning pattern even though the beetle has neither sting nor venom.
Larvae can develop in many deciduous hosts, tunnelling through dead branches and helping convert standing woody material into fragments and frass.
After a long hidden larval period, the adult switches to feeding openly on pollen and nectar during a short, sun-dependent flight season.
Sources and scientific references
More photographs
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