Adults are roughly 18–30 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Mastododera nodicollis
A longhorn whose knotted thorax and velvet-like surface disguise a powerful wood-boring lineage.
About this species
Mastododera nodicollis(Klug, 1833)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Mastododera nodicollis is an endemic Madagascan dorcasomine longhorn. The adult is recognised by its strongly nodular pronotum, dense pubescence and distinctive proportions.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Coleoptera · Cerambycidae · Mastododera
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
MadagascarBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Madagascar
Humid and seasonally dry forest with dead wood.
Adults occur on vegetation and woody surfaces; mating has been photographed in the field.
Larvae develop in dead or weakened wood.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
The “nodicollis” name refers to a neck-like pronotum remodelled into swollen nodes and constrictions, turning the thorax itself into one of the beetle’s most diagnostic structures.
Field photographs from Madagascar document mating on exposed roadside vegetation, a rare behavioural record for a species otherwise known mainly from museum specimens and taxonomic keys.
Mastododera is a small radiation of roughly eleven described species centred on Madagascar and the Comoros, so this beetle belongs to an evolutionary branch with almost no existence outside those islands.