WEEVILS have chewing mouth parts, as opposed to piercing mouth parts of most other beetles.
They mostly use these mouth parts to chew into seeds and grains, but some also chew into stems and new shoots of plants to feed on it. Their feeding habits make many species a real pest to crops and agriculture.
There are about 97 000 species of weevils known worldwide, most belonging to the super-family Curculionoida, known for their elongated snouts.
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Most weevil species have wings and can fly. They are very small, being less than 6mm in length, however, there are some large species of weevil of about 25mm long.
“I have seen a few dozen weevil species in Durban, but there are probably still a few hundred species to be found. The most interesting one I have seen is the hose nose cycad weevil, Antliarhis Zamiae,” said Warren Dick.
The cycad weevil has a shiny brown body that measures less than a centimetre in length. The nose can be up to three times as long as the body with mandibles at the end. As their name suggests their life cycle revolves around cycads.
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The females have a much longer nose than the males for good reason. The female will use her long snout to bore a hole into the cycad seed, going through the soft flesh and nutlike shell until she reaches the seed where she then deposits some eggs.
The eggs soon hatch and the developing larvae feed on the seed of the cycad, hollowing it out. The larvae pupate inside the seed and only immerge when they are adult weevils.
Contact Warren to have some of your interesting insects, snakes or spiders identified. Call or WhatsApp him on 072 211 0353.
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