Dendroctonus rufipennis
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
Dendroctonus rufipennis, the great spruce bark beetle, is a species of bark beetle native to British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Northern Manitoba, the Yukon, Alaska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Maine. They can seriously damage forests of spruce trees including Engelmann, White, Sitka, and Colorado blue spruce. Adults average 4 to 7 mm in length.
The great spruce bark beetle Dendroctonus rufipennis, about 6 mm long, is one of the larger bark beetles found in spruce. White spruce and Engelmann spruce are the principal hosts. The beetles are attracted strongly to blowdowns, cull logs, and freshly-cut logs. Outbreaks of the beetle, a transcontinental North American species, have been devastating to white and Engelmann spruces throughout western North America, from Arizona to Alaska, while smaller outbreaks have occurred in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The species is the most serious pest of mature and overmature Alberta spruce in British Columbia; small-diameter, rapidly growing trees were least susceptible to attack or death from the beetle, and the greater susceptibility of large-diameter, slowly-growing trees was more closely... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denali National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anchorage | 🇺🇸 United States |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Spruce Bark Beetle sighting in Denali National Park on a given day, based on 7 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 24th most-seen of the 36 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June and September
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Spruce Bark Beetle in Denali National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–May, August and October, the lowest months. November to February have too few records to rate.
Between 1 and 4 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Spruce Bark Beetle sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Denali National Park, in our data
Denali National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Spruce Bark Beetle sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Coleoptera
The closest relatives of the Spruce Bark Beetle that you can see in Denali National Park (order Coleoptera, Beetles) are White-Spotted Sawyer (about 20%), Transverse Lady Beetle (about 10%) and Gnathacmaeops pratensis (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Spruce Bark Beetle is recorded against all the insects logged in Denali National Park (7 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
