ATTLEBORO -- Call it a case of mistaken identity.

Park and Forestry Superintendent Sonny Almeida has received at least a half-dozen calls recently from city residents claiming they have found the notorious longhorned Asian beetle in their yards, only to find out the culprit is the look-alike whitespotted sawyer beetle.

Mike Ward of South Attleboro thought he might have found the destructive beetle on the side of his home earlier this week because it looked a lot like one he saw featured in broadcasts of the insect-driven destruction in Worcester.

"I found it hanging out on the side of my house, so I put a ladder up and got it," he said. "It looked funky."

Ward said he was unaware of the look-alike whitespotted sawyer beetle. A major difference between the two is that the whitespotted sawyer has a distinct white, half-moon shape behind the neck. Its degree of destructiveness is also less daunting.

Asian longhorned beetles bore into many species of living trees and have led to the removal of more than 20,000 trees in Worcester.

Whitespotted sawyers, a native beetle, attack diseased and damaged pine trees.

They also emerge from trees earlier in the season than the Asian longhorned, although Asian longhorns are expected to be seen in Massachusetts in July, according to experts with the state Department of Agricultural Resources and the University of Massachusetts Extension Agriculture and Landscape Program.

Almeida said most of the beetles found had taken up residence in logs and near pine trees.

City residents aren't alone in their finds.

In late May, biologists across Massachusetts and other New England states reported seeing whitespotted sawyer beetles, the beetle most often confused with the Asian longhorned.

The whitespotted pine sawyer is found from Newfoundland south to the Carolinas, as far west as Minnesota, and north to Alaska. Those beetles feed on many conifers, including white, red, and jack pines, balsam fir and spruces, according to a Web site established by the state and UMass extension program.

Adults range from 0.75 inch to 1.25 inches in length, or about the size of a dime. Adults emerge in late spring and can be seen all summer, depending on the climate.

Male whitespotted sawyers are metallic black with one white dot at the base of the wing covers; females are brown with speckles and also have the white dot at the base of the wing covers. The Asian longhorned beetle does not have the tell-tale white dot, although it has many white spots on its wing covers.