With at least 48,000 named species, weevils form the largest family in the animal kingdom and probably far outnumber the chordates that imagine themselves the most successful shoot on the bushy shrub of life. These stout beetles are quite easy to recognise, with their elbowed antennae and rostrums that may be flat and broad or long enough to make some resemble a spineless (in both senses of the word) six-legged echidna.
Despite their numbers, curculionids don't turn up in plain sight as often as lesser insect families, or even other beetles. A few sprinkle themselves amidst the powder of unwashed grains. Others scamper over floating fields of duckweed. But it's likely that the bulk of their tribe lurk in the inner space of tree trunks, flower buds and deep soil, biding their time and growing in numbers till the day when they emerge in strength to overwhelm lower races with outbursts of bright opal and fulfil the weasel words of prophets who remain blind to bigger sins while casting waves of condemnation on acts of love that harbour no more than a little weevil.
I like your yellow weevil. You've made it look pretty for a weevil!
Posted by: Yuan Ting | 09 May 2009 at 09:54 PM