Zopherus jansoni

Members of the genus are long and cylindrical, with very thick exoskeletons. Indeed, the elytra are so thick that it is often necessary to drill a hole in them in order to mount specimens. Species living north of the Rio Grande are almost all uniformly black in colour, while the tropical species are almost all strongly patterned in contrasting black and white. The animal's head is largely hidden by the thorax. The elytra are fused together, rendering Zopherus species unable to fly.

Species of Zopherus only live in the Americas, where they are distributed from Venezuela to the southern United States. Ten species live in the United States, five of them in California.

Zopherus species are adapted for boring into wood, some species even being reported to bore into sound wood, rather than only dead wood. Z. tristis lives under the bark of the desert tamarisk in the Colorado Desert, while Z. granicollis bores into the root crowns of Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi) and single-leaf pine (Pinus monophylla).