Plum curculio
The plum curculio is a small weevil with a short, rough snout, speckled black, grey and brown. It is famous among fruit growers because it lays its eggs inside plums, apples, peaches and cherries. Its larvae then grow up inside the fruit.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Plum curculio compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The mother digs a little room under the fruit skin for her egg, then cuts a curved slit below it so the growing fruit does not squash the egg.
That slit leaves a scar shaped like a crescent moon on the fruit.
Most fruit with a larva inside falls off the tree early.
The grown-up beetles spend the winter hiding in the woods.
It is most active in spring when the weather is warm, damp and cloudy.
Most asked questions about Plum curculio
?What does the plum curculio do to fruit?
It lays eggs inside fruit, leaving crescent-shaped scars, and the larvae eat the fruit from inside.
?How big is a plum curculio?
Only about 4 to 6 millimetres long.
?Is the plum curculio dangerous?
Not to people. It only harms fruit trees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Conotrachelus nenuphar
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Curculionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Curculionidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Plum curculio (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 Clemson University. CC BY 3.0, 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.
Stag beetle
Hercules beetle
Common glow-worm
Goliath beetle
Cockchafer
Mealworm beetle
Eastern tailed-blue
Silver-studded blue
Marsh fritillary
Tropical fire ant
Woolly apple aphid
White garden snail