Sonoma Mountain Ecology Notes

Celebrating and Caring for the Land

California Acorn Weevil

Curculio occidentalis, also known as the “Filbert Weevil” is found throughout western North America and has a close relationship with Oak seeds…acorns. It’s been said that most terrestrial animal species are beetles and most beetles are weevils, almost 100,000 species world-wide. The female uses her long proboscis to chew a hole in the young acorn then deposits a few eggs inside. By the time the acorns fall, the larvae have had time to eat away at the developing seed and munch their way out then burrow into the soil where they pupate and emerge the following year in time for a new batch of acorns.

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