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Pupa and adult

As with all holometabolans, beetle larvae pupate, and from these pupae emerge fully formed, sexually mature adult beetles, or imagos. 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 obtect pupae).

Adults have extremely variable lifespans, from weeks to years, depending on the species. 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.