114: Cherry Curculio

This charismatic but tiny weevil (they are only about 2.75 mm in size) lives throughout much of Colorado, found in native chokecherry bushes. Although they live in happy symbiosis with the chokecherry, they will damage commercial cherry trees (which are non-native). Their long snout features tiny mandibles at its end which they use to chew on the base of blossoms and fruit in cherry trees. Females chew out pits in the fruit – up to 100 of them during their 4-6 week period of activity in the spring – and then lay eggs into the pit before sealing it up with a small fecal plug. The eggs hatch into legless, cream-colored grubs who then chew their way out of the cherry and seek shelter until the next spring.

Cherry Curculios are predated by parasitic wasps – in fact, over 50% of them may be killed this way when they are developing larvae! When threatened, Cherry Curculios play dead by lying on their backs with their legs curled up.

Curculio is a Latin name for a weevil, a creature who the Romans identified as destroying grain crops. The Curculionidae, the family that the Cherry Curculio belongs to, is one of the largest animal families – there are 83,000 species described worldwide!