On various times and places, I came across beetles from the Curculionoidea superfamily. Known commonly as weevils, they are characterized by long, chitinous snouts that carry their mouthparts. When viewed closely, their faces look like they are wearing little gas masks.
Here are two weevils from my travels:
Here are two weevils from my travels:
I found this shy customer in front of the Nişanyan Hotel in Şirince, a town in Aegean Turkey. It had a gnarly, armoured carapace. It looked similar to the genus Aades, but I couldn't come up with a proper identification.
This one landed on my knee randomly while I was out in a park in 2010. It had a very long snout and also two very large, cute-looking eyes. It was possibly a Curculio nucum, the oak-boring weevil. This species used its comically-elongated proboscis to bore oak acorns and lay eggs inside.
Weevils are an enormously diverse and understudied group, much more can be written about them.
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