Females chew an oviposition pit through the bark and lay a single egg beneath it. The larva feeds first in the cambium, then bores into the heartwood, and the adult leaves through a round exit hole roughly a centimetre across. Because the damage is internal, infestation is usually detected only from exit holes, oviposition pits and coarse frass, by which time the tree has been occupied for a year or more.
There is no cure for an infested tree. Eradication programmes in the United States, Canada and Europe have relied on locating infested trees and removing them entirely, chipping or incinerating the wood, and felling high-risk host trees nearby. Surveys then continue for years: the United States programme allows a minimum of four years between a first detection and the final survey cycle, because a single missed larva can restart the population.
The approach has worked. Several North American and European outbreaks have been declared eradicated after sustained survey and removal, making this one of the few forest insect invasions successfully reversed, though at the cost of tens of thousands of trees.