Hylastes ater

Adults are cylindrical in form and are grey or shiny black in colour. They are 4.5-5 mm long. This species primarily inhabit stumps and roots of felled pine trees in moisture localities or logs if they remain on site, and keeps close contact to the soil. Gallery consists of a short entry tunnel leading into an oblique nuptial chamber from which issues a single maternal gallery 80-130 mm long and usually parallel with the grain of the wood. About 100 eggs are laid along the walls of the gallery. The larvae make irregular larval chambers. Upon maturation of the brood, groups of about 30-40 beetles may be present in broad irregularly shaped communal galleries underneath the bark. Immature beetles feed on the inner bark of pine, spruce, true firs, and Douglas fir and larch seedlings. This feeding can cause heavy mortality of the seedlings.