New Zealand giraffe weevil
The giraffe weevil is a beetle with a super long neck and snout, a bit like a giraffe. It is the longest beetle in New Zealand. A big male's snout can be almost as long as its whole body.
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Fun facts
Male giraffe weevils fight each other with their long snouts to win a female.
Small males do not fight. They sneak in to meet a female, sometimes right under the nose of a big male.
The female has a shorter snout. She uses it to bite little holes in tree trunks, and lays one egg in each hole.
If you scare one, it drops off the tree and lies still in the leaves, pretending to be dead for up to an hour.
The larva lives inside a tree for at least two years, but the grown-up beetle lives only a few weeks.
Most asked questions about New Zealand giraffe weevil
?How big is the New Zealand giraffe weevil?
Males can be up to 9 cm long, females up to 5 cm. Some are much smaller, only about 1 to 2 cm.
?Where does the giraffe weevil live?
Only in New Zealand, mostly in forests on the North Island.
?What does the giraffe weevil eat?
The grown-up beetle drinks tree sap. The larva eats fungus inside dead wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lasiorhynchus barbicornis
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1775
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Brentidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Brentidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Giraffe weevil
Where the facts come from
- New Zealand giraffe weevil (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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