Jim and I have spent hours this winter picking up dead twigs and branches that have blown down during the frequent high winds. While I was outside piling up more debris after our fast and furious snowstorm this week, I remembered that I wrote a column about 10 years ago on two species of industrious beetles that can make a ragged, unsightly mess of a tree. You may have noticed that the ends of some of the twigs on the ground look as though they have been chewed while other damaged twigs remained on the trees, each dangling by a shred of bark. Close inspection of the twigs may reveal the characteristic chewing patterns of two common, native beetles with the descriptive names “twig girdler” and “twig pruner.” With a little practice, you can learn to recognize the differences between the damage caused by the two pests. Twig girdlers and twig pruners are members of the family of long-horned beetles, of which there are 35,000 species. Most of the damage these insects cause becomes obvious i...