A few species have short antennae (e.g., Neandra brunnea), making them difficult to distinguish from related families such as Chrysomelidae.

"Cerambycidae" comes from a Greek mythological figure: after an argument with nymphs, the shepherd Cerambus is transformed into a large beetle with horns.

The titan beetle (Titanus giganteus) from northeastern South America is often considered the largest insect (though not the heaviest, and not the longest including legs), with a maximum known body length of just over 16.7 cm (6.6 in).

[7] Borgemeister, et al. 1998, recorded that cerambycid activity in girdled twigs released volatiles attractive to some bostrichids, especially Prostephanus truncatus.

[8] A few cerambycids, such as Arhopalus sp., are adapted to take advantage of trees recently killed or injured by forest fires by detecting and pursuing smoke volatiles.

[14] Another rare orchid Disa forficaria, found in the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa, relies on the species Chorothyse hessei for pollination.

D. forficaria uses sexual deception targeting male C. hessei, possibly indicating a long history of co-evolution with longhorn beetle pollinators.

In North America some native cerambycids are the hosts of Ontsira mellipes (a parasitoid wasp in the family Braconidae).

[19] The oldest unambiguous fossils of the family are Cretoprionus and Sinopraecipuus from Yixian Formation of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning, China, dating to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous, approximately 122 million years ago.

[20][21] Qitianniu from the mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber of Myanmar, dating to approximately 100 million years ago, also could not be placed in any extant subfamily.