[Fuchsia]

Hello,
Had a great day hunting for and photographing bugs and spiders. This one looks like a cross between an aardvark and a clanger. What the heck is it please!

Cheers
Jen :-)

[Steve G]

Looks like some form of pesky weevil.

[Charles Harper]

Yes, it`s a curculionid-- a snout beetle or weevil-- most of which do damage to garden plants and crops (notably the cotton boll weevil in the s. US). If you`ve got a lot of them, you`ll probably have to spray. Don`t know what species yours is though. My favorite family of beetles, nevertheless.

[very boring banned member]

Yes, family is Curculionidae, with 1 200 members in Central Europe. Gymnetron antirrhini (common) looks like this, but it can be myriad other species.

[Steve G]

Once saw a pic. of a Madagascan Giraffe Weevil- now that's one hell of a weevil -it can "blight" my tattie crop any day!

[Charles Harper]

Here`s one-- wow!

http://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.../girweevl.html

[Steve G]

Aye, no fun getting one of those up the kilt!

[steve_nova]

I agree with Charles in that this is one of my favourite groups (apart from Tiger Beetles). I think that the Giraffe Weevil or at least a similar species to it is sub-social ie a female looks after her young almost to the point of them staying with her as a colony?......I'll have to check on that though.

At least this one is definately not the clay coloured VINE WEEVIL! so dreaded now as a garden pest in the UK. Most other species are thankfully somewhat host specific and usually attack only one species or at most a family of plants.

Nice pic too!

[Fuchsia]

Charles and SteveN - you're not the only I've heard say that - well that's four Weevil fans now!
Charles, you beat me to it with the Giraffe pic - that had to be shared :-)
The farmer sprayed our field the day I saw this chap (heaven knows what with!) but he flew off in the other direction. Phew!
With 1200 types I'll probably never know what he was - so I'll stick with Aardvark!

Cheers me dears
Jen :-))

[Fuchsia]

Nice pic too!


Thanks

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi Fuchsia,
I work with weevils;

This is a curculionid of the Family Rhynchitidae (Formerly a subfamily (Rhynchitinae) of the Curculionidae, now seperated from them).
This is probably from the genus Rhynchites, or the genus Coenorhinus. The exact species cannot safely be determined from a photograph.

genus Rhynchites: larvae develop in small unripe fruits of Rosaceae (more or less host specific for each species)

genus Coenorhinus: larvae as above but in shoots, not fruit

Adults in both cases make only very small holes in the host plant leaves,
Species from both genera can sometimes do economical damage (more likely in southern Europe), but in most cases not many shoots or fruit are affected.


Jörn