Look who came to dinner!

Raquel and I were busy having dinner after a good day’s work, when a large beetle crashed into our table.   We didn’t recognise it, but upon consulting Celso Godinho Jnr’s field guide of Beetles of the World, we found it to be a fine example of the Flat-faced Longhorn beetle,  or Taeniotes subocellatus  of the Cerambycidae family.

Flat-faced Longhorn beetle, Taeniotes subocellatus (© Nicholas Locke)

It was first collected in 1792, making it the second discovered Taeniotes beetle, as named by Guillaume-Antoine Olivier, one of Frances most prestigious naturalists in his own important reference book.

This species is found as far north as Guyana in August / September coinciding with the same month it came to us for dinner.