Editing Beetle (section)

====Pupa and adult====
[[File:Eburia quadrigeminata.jpg|thumb|The ivory-marked beetle, ''[[Eburia quadrigeminata]]'', may live up to 40 years inside the [[hardwood]]s on which the larva feeds.]]

As with all holometabolans, beetle larvae pupate, and from these [[pupa]]e emerge fully formed, sexually mature adult beetles, or [[imago]]s. Pupae never have mandibles (they are [[adecticous]]). In most pupae, the appendages are not attached to the body and are said to be [[exarate]]; in a few beetles (Staphylinidae, Ptiliidae etc.) the appendages are fused with the body (termed as [[Pupa#Position in life cycle|obtect]] pupae).<ref name="Gilliott"/>

Adults have extremely variable lifespans, from weeks to years, depending on the species.<ref name="Gilliott"/><ref name="ausbeetle"/> Some wood-boring beetles can have extremely long life-cycles. It is believed that when furniture or house timbers are infested by beetle larvae, the timber already contained the larvae when it was first sawn up. A [[birch]] bookcase 40 years old released adult ''[[Eburia quadrigeminata]]'' ([[Cerambycidae]]), while ''[[Buprestis aurulenta]]'' and other [[Buprestidae]] have been documented as emerging as much as 51 years after manufacture of wooden items.<ref name="Zeng">{{cite web|last1=Zeng|first1=Yong|title=Longest Life Cycle|url=http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/chapters/chapter_12.shtml|publisher=University of Florida|access-date=17 March 2017|date=1995}}</ref>