Sweet potato snout weevil

As its name suggests, the sweet potato snout weevil lives and feeds on sweet potatoes. As a snout beetle, this insect has a long, narrow snout which it uses to bore into its food. The female sweet potato snout weevil also uses her snout to position her eggs in the plant tissue of the sweet potato.

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Uniramia

Class: Insecta

Order: Coleoptera

Family: Brentidae

Genus: Cylas

Species: Formicarius fabricius

The sweet potato snout weevil typically grows to be about 1/3 of an inch (five to eight millimeters) long. Like other weevils, the sweet potato snout weevil has a long, narrow snout extending from its head. It uses its snout to bore into its food. On the sides of its snout are the sweet potato snout weevil's antennae. This pair of antennae help the sweet potato snout weevil to smell its surroundings. When the sweet potato snout weevil is boring into a sweet potato, its antennae slip into grooves on the sides of the snout to avoid being damaged.

Like other beetles, the sweet potato snout weevil has a pair of hard, protective elytra, or wing cases, which cover the beetle's delicate rear wings. Each elytrum is formed from one of the sweet potato snout weevil's front wings. When the insect is crawling through the leaves of the sweet potato plant, the elytra rest over the beetle's back like a solid piece of exoskeleton, or external skeleton. But when the sweet potato snout weevil takes to the air, the elytra lift, and the beetle's rear wings unfold and carry the beetle into the air.

Like other insects, the sweet potato snout weevil is divided into the three main parts of head, thorax, or middle section, and abdomen, or lower section. The first pair of legs of the sweet potato snout weevil extend from the beetle's thorax, while the remaining two pairs extend from its abdomen. Both the body and legs of the sweet potato snout weevil are speckled in a variety of shades of brown and covered with coarse yellow hairs.

The sweet potato snout weevil is typically found in the southern United States, Australia, China, tropical regions, or wherever sweet potatoes are grown. It is called the sweet potato snout weevil for its feeding habits and its long, narrow snout.

The sweet potato snout weevil chews the meat of the sweet potato with the tiny, gnawing teeth at the end of its snout. Like the mandibles, or jaws, of other beetles, the sweet potato snout weevil tears into its food with these teeth.

The sweet potato snout weevil mates in the springtime when the weather is warm. After mating, the female sweet potato snout weevil lays her fertilized eggs in the plant tissue of the sweet potato. She lays two to four eggs a day for around month for a total of 75 to 100 eggs. After a developmental period within the eggs, young larval sweet potato snout weevils emerge. They spend this stage of their lives feeding on the meat of the sweet potatoes. Eventually, the larvae move into the soil and rest while their bodies develop into adult sweet potato snout weevils. This stage of development is known as the pupal stage. As adults, they mate, lay eggs, and die.

Ants, spiders, earwigs, and beetles are just a few of the natural predators of the sweet potato snout weevil. The life span of the sweet potato snout weevil is one to two months. They are not a threatened species.

Bibliography

Castner, James, et al. “Sweetpotato Weevil - Cylas Formicarius (Fabricius).” Entomology and Nematology Department, July 2018, entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/potato/sweetpotato‗weevil.htm. Accessed 10 May 2024.

“Sweet Potato Weevil.” Gardener's Supply, 18 Mar. 2024, www.gardeners.com/how-to/sweet-potato-weevil/5302.html. Accessed 10 May 2024.