1.   An adult Asian longhorned beetle can be up to an inch and a half long, and is black-bodied with white spots and long mottled black antennae.

2.   Because adult beetles are active only in the summer and fall, their pursuers are mapping their plans now.

3.   That is why officials say the only way to fight the bug is to destroy infested trees in the winter before adult beetles emerge.

4.   The adult beetles emerge around July, leaving round, quarter-inch holes in the trees.

5.   The adult beetle, which dies with the first hard frost, is about an inch long, with a jet-black body and white spots on its back.

6.   The adult beetles feed on the leaves and their larvae mine the roots, damaging them and opening them to attack by pathogenic fungi.

7.   The only way to fight the beetle, experts say, is to cut down the tree in the winter before adult beetles emerge, and burn the wood.

8.   Then, when the environment starts to heat up and dry out later in the summer, the adult beetles try to enter homes.

9.   They also checked the density of adult beetles at the sites, and collected evidence of predation and parasitism of adults, eggs, larvae and pupae.

10.   Though it is too soon to say the effort is a success, Simmons said in a telephone interview that five adult beetles had already been spotted on Monomoy.