Diet

• Adults: May feed on bark, sap and other plant fluids, although adult feeding is not well documented.

• Larvae: Wood-boring, developing inside woody stems, branches and trunks, where they feed on internal plant tissues and construct galleries.

• The species is associated with woody vegetation, but specific larval host plants for O. zapotensis are not well established.

Range

• Ornithia zapotensis is a Neotropical longhorn beetle occurring in western and southern Mexico and Central America, including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

• Around Zihuatanejo, it is fairly likely to be encountered, particularly during the warmer and wetter months when adult longhorn beetles are active. It is a particularly good species to watch for in tropical deciduous forest and areas containing mature woody vegetation.

Habitat

• Found in tropical dry forest, tropical deciduous forest, woodland, forest edges and secondary vegetation.

• Adults can be found resting on leaves, branches and tree trunks, where their contrasting markings make them easier to spot than many similarly sized longhorn beetles.

• Look particularly around woody vegetation and trees showing signs of beetle activity, such as small emergence holes or damaged branches.

Size

• Adult length: approximately 15–25 mm (0.6–1.0 in).

• Body elongated and relatively slender, with long antennae characteristic of Cerambycidae.

• The most distinctive feature is the pattern of pale yellow to lemon-yellow markings against a dark body, including bands and elongated spots on the pronotum and elytra.

• The yellow markings are particularly useful for distinguishing O. zapotensis from the closely related O. mexicana. Molecular work has also supported treating the two forms as distinct species.