Rhopalapion longirostre – the Hollyhock Weevil
Urbana, Illinois
The hollyhock weevil is, I believe, the very first beetle in the family Brentidae we’ve featured as part of our Friday series. Rhopalapion longirostre is an introduced European insect that feeds on hollyhocks, a common summer-flowering ornamental that, like its beetle pest, is also introduced. Some neighbors have a stand of these just up the road, and every time I look they are covered in cute little grey weevils (perhaps not coincidentally, the flowers don’t look all that great…)
The female picture here is laying an egg into a flower bud. If you look carefully, you should be able to see the ovipositor sticking into the plant tissue from the tip of her abdomen.
Photo details: Canon EOS 7D camera
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens
ISO 100, f13, 1/250 sec, diffused flash
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I have good childhood memories associated with hollyhocks, and the old-fashioned “single” ones resultingly are my favorite non-native plant. I can’t begrudge this beetle for loving them, too, but it sure does ruin a lot of seeds and disfigure them.
That is amazing photography. The hollyhock looks a bit like a tiny ant eater…
Just stumbled across your blog by accident. This weevil, which had been spreading across Europe during the 1980s and 1990s finally turned up in Britain, on the hollyhocks in my street in south-east London, in 2006. I still spot it occasionally, but so far it has failed to spread more than a couple of miles hereabouts. I dubbed it the pinocchio weevil for my small son.