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The Curculionidae are the family of the "true" weevils. They are one of the largest animal families, with 6,800 genera and 83,000 species described worldwide.
Weevils are beetles belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea, known for their elongated snouts. They are usually small, less than 6 mm in length, and herbivorous. About 97,000 species of weevils are known. They belong to several families, with most of them in the family Curculionidae. Some other beetles, although not closely related, bear the name "weevil", such as the biscuit weevil, which belongs to the family Ptinidae.
Buprestidae is a family of beetles known as jewel beetles or metallic wood-boring beetles because of their glossy iridescent colors. Larvae of this family are known as flatheaded borers. The family is among the largest of the beetles, with some 15,500 species known in 775 genera. In addition, almost 100 fossil species have been described.
A bark beetle is one of about 6,000 species in 247 genera of beetles in the subfamily Scolytinae. Previously, this was considered a distinct family (Scolytidae), but is now understood to be specialized clade of the "true weevil" family (Curculionidae). Although the term "bark beetle" refers to the fact that many species feed in the inner bark (phloem) layer of trees, the subfamily also has many species with other lifestyles, including some that bore into wood, feed in fruit and seeds, or tunnel into herbaceous plants. Well-known species are members of the type genus Scolytus, namely the European elm bark beetle S. multistriatus and the large elm bark beetle S. scolytus, which like the American elm bark beetle Hylurgopinus rufipes, transmit Dutch elm disease fungi (Ophiostoma). The mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae, southern pine beetle Dendroctonus frontalis, and their near relatives are major pests of conifer forests in North America. A similarly aggressive species in Europe is the spruce ips Ips typographus. A tiny bark beetle, the coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei is a major pest on coffee plantations around the world.
Picea glauca, the white spruce, is a species of spruce native to the northern temperate and boreal forests in North America. Picea glauca was originally native from central Alaska all through the east, across southern/central Canada to the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. It now has become naturalized southward into the far northern United States border states like Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine; there is also an isolated population in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. It is also known as Canadian spruce, skunk spruce, cat spruce, Black Hills spruce, western white spruce, Alberta white spruce, and Porsild spruce.
Hylobius is a genus of true weevils. Several Hylobius species are major pests of coniferous trees.
Hylobius abietis or the large pine weevil is a beetle belonging to family Curculionidae. This species is widely regarded as the most important pest of most commercially important coniferous trees in European plantations. Seedlings planted or arising from natural regeneration after clear felling operations are especially at risk. The adult weevils cause damage by eating the bark of seedlings around the 'collar' of the stem, thus 'ring-barking' the tree seedling which usually results in its demise.
Pine and fir trees, grown purposely for use as Christmas trees, are vulnerable to a wide variety of pests, weeds and diseases. Many of the conifer species cultivated face infestations and death from such pests as the balsam woolly adelgid and other adelgids. Aphids are another common insect pest. Christmas trees are also vulnerable to fungal pathogens and their resultant illnesses such as root rot, and, in the U.S. state of California, sudden oak death. Douglas-fir trees in particular are vulnerable to infections from plant pathogens such as R. pseudotsugae.
Pissodes strobi, known as the white pine weevil or Engelmann spruce weevil, is the primary weevil attacking and destroying white pines. It was described in 1817 by William Dandridge Peck, professor of natural history and botany at Harvard University. The weevil is dark brown with white spots and is native to North America.
Otiorhynchus ovatus, also called the strawberry root weevil, is one of the many species in the weevil family (Curculionidae), occurring across Canada and the northern United States. Its name comes from its affinity for strawberry plants, which form a large part of its diet. They are, however, known to feed on other plants as well. Occasionally the larvae cause serious damage to seedlings and young transplants in plantations and nurseries. It is known to be one of the major pests threatening sub-tropical strawberry farming.
Cydia strobilella, the spruce seed moth, is a moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found in Europe.
Dendroctonus rufipennis, the spruce beetle, is a species of bark beetle native to British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, Northern Manitoba, the Yukon, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Maine. They are known to destroy forests of spruce trees including Engelmann, White, Sitka, and Colorado blue spruce. Adults average 4 to 7 mm in length.
Coleotechnites piceaella is a moth of the family Gelechiidae. It is found in north-eastern United States and Canada. It is an introduced species in Europe and was first recorded from Great Britain in 1952, then Germany in 1963 and has expanded from there over all of central Europe, towards France, Italy and Hungary.
Hylobius transversovittatus is a species of weevil in the family Curculionidae. It is native to the Old World where both adults and larvae feed on purple loosestrife. This plant is regarded as an invasive species in North America and the weevil has been introduced into both the United States and Canada in an effort to control the plant.
Argyresthia picea is a moth of the family Yponomeutidae. It is found in Canada, including Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the Yukon.
Ips is a genus of beetles in the family Curculionidae, the true weevils. They are bark beetles, members of the subfamily Scolytinae. Species are distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Some are known as introduced species in Australia and Africa. Many species are pests of forest trees, especially pines and spruces. They are known commonly as engraver beetles, ips engraver beetles, and pine engravers.
Archips packardianus, the spring spruce needle moth or spruce needleworm, is a species of moth of the family Tortricidae. Spruce needle worms are commonly found in small numbers on spruce and trees of other coniferous genera throughout most of Canada and the northeastern US. Archips packardiana overwinters as a tiny larva in a mined needle. Needle mining is resumed in the spring, the larvae later moving to feed on new foliage, where they spin considerable webbing. Full-grown larvae have a pale green head, sometimes patterned with brown, and a pale body and pale thoracic legs, and are about 20 mm long. The larva pupates, usually in the webbed needles, and the adult emerges in summer to early fall. The closely related Archips strianus is much less common, but probably has a habitat similar to that of A. packardiana. The larvae have dark thoracic legs and small dark areas around the base of the thoracic hairs. The habitat consists of coniferous and mixed woods.
Megastigmus atedius is a species of minute wasp that feeds on white spruce seed and cones. The damage it causes is largely undetected because the larvae complete their development hidden inside the seeds, which reveal no external indication of this. Although species of Megastigmus are said to be host-specific, the spruce seed chalcid found near Fairbanks, Alaska, was identified by E.H. Holsten and others in 1980 as M. piceae, while A.H. Rose and O.H. Lindquist applied the name Megastigmus piceae, but gave the authority as Rohwer.
Gilpinia hercyniae, the European spruce sawfly, was first found in North America near Hull, Quebec, in 1922. By 1930, severe damage was occurring in spruce stands in the Lower St. Lawrence–Gaspé region of Quebec. Population levels exploded, and further damage subsequently occurred in New Brunswick and the northeastern United States. Loss of wood from spruce mortality was estimated at 10 million cubic metres, but by the mid-1980s pest numbers on all species of spruce in Canada from Manitoba to the Atlantic Ocean and in adjacent parts of the United States had become relatively low under the influence of spontaneous virus disease and introduced parasites. In Newfoundland, control was helped by the introduction of the masked shrew, a cocoon-hunting insectivore.
Spruce sawflies are various sawfly species found in North America that attack spruce. There are multiple species of sawflies, including, European spruce sawfly, yellow-headed spruce sawfly, green-headed spruce sawfly, little spruce sawfly, and spruce webspinning sawfly. Each kind of sawfly attack particular parts of the spruce during different times of the year. These insects first begin feasting, or attacking, spruce as [larvae] and continue until they are fully grown.
References
- ↑ Rose, A.H.; Lindquist, O.H. 1985. Insects of eastern spruces, fir and, hemlock, revised edition. Gov’t Can., Can. For. Serv., Ottawa, For. Tech. Rep. 23. 159 p. (cited in Coates et al. 1994, cited orig ed 1977)
- ↑ John A. McLean (August 2007). "Hylobius warreni (Curculionidae) Warren's collar weevil". University of British Columbia . Retrieved February 28, 2011.