Taxonomy
Kingdom:	Phylum:	Class:	Order:	Family:	Genus:	Species:
Animalia	Arthropoda	Insecta	Coleoptera	Cerambycidae	Stenopterus	S.rufus

Even though Stenopterus rufus doesn't look like an ordinary Longhorn Beetle, it is one. It is widespread in most of Europe, in Caucasus, Transcaucasia, Iran and in the Near East These beetles mainly inhabit meadows, hedge rows, beech forests and wet forests.

Stenopterus rufus measures between 8 and 16mm in length. The body has a velvet-like hair. Elytra are very narrow. Antennae are about as long as the body and clearly segmented. The head and pronotum are black colored and the abdomen has a black background color horizontally crossed by yellow stripes. The legs are mainly red. The beetle mimics a wasp both in appearance and in behaviour. It imitates a wasp well by frantic movements, waving restlessly with its antennae and by frequent flying up. The adults are active from May to August.

In our garden it is a common species. It can be easily identified by the shape of the shields, the colour and especially the thickened thighs: black on the front and middle legs, red on the rear legs. The statistics show that its numbers in Holland are declining. In Belgium it is known to be a rather rare species as well. In our garden however between 2000 and 2007 we could often find it.