Another Amazing Insect

I did contact the county extension office as someone recommended. I sent them this photo and they told me it was a weevil, but not a cotton boll weevil. It is actually a PECAN weevil. They do damage pecan crops and are only in some Texas counties, but ours is one of them. I thought I'd leave the rest of this post as-is since I found out so much about the boll weevil. :-)

Today, we had another beautiful backyard find. After taking about 30 photos of him, he suprisingly flew away. (He'd been so still and patient with us that I figured he couldn't fly.) So, we went inside, downloaded the photos and grabbed one of our insect guides to look him up. So, what is he? (As always, he looks so much more amazing if you click the photo to enlarge it!)

A Boll Weevil. Yes, the kind that causes so much trouble to cotton farmers.

Our next step was to go online and do a little research on this tiny little insect. (That's Alexandra's hand in the photo - the weevil is sitting on the leaf.) This beetle migrated from Mexico to the US, across the Rio Grande into Texas, in the late 1800's and had spread across all cotton growing areas by the 1920's, devastating the industry. Pesticides such as DDT were developed after WWII and farmers could once again grow cotton profitably. But, of course, such pesiticides were costly and very damaging to the environment.

"The boll weevil infestation, however, has been credited with bringing about economic diversification in the southern US, including the expansion of peanut cropping." (from this site)

Being a Texan, I find it interesting that the spread of the fire ant (something we have to watch out for daily here in south Texas!) has been a factor in the decline of the number of weevils.

Anyway, I wonder what this little guy was doing in our backyard. I guess he just came to visit so we could have a little nature study. What's in your backyard?