BORER BEETLE

any of the approximately 1,100 species of insects of the family Anobiidae (order Coleoptera). These beetles tend to be small (1 to 9 mm, or less than 0.5 inch) and cylindrical. When disturbed they usually pull in their legs and play dead. The best-known borers are the cigarette beetle, deathwatch beetle, drugstore beetle, and furniture beetle. They live in drugs, cereals, spices, wood, tobacco products, and upholstery materials, and still others live in fungi, seeds, galls, and under bark. The name borer beetle is also applied to tree-boring members of the family Scolytidae.