{"id":15290,"date":"2024-09-04T10:24:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T15:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/?p=15290"},"modified":"2024-09-04T10:24:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T15:24:55","slug":"the-clover-leaf-weevil-and-other-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/the-clover-leaf-weevil-and-other-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"The Clover Leaf Weevil and Other Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Howdy, BugFans,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BugLady has been playing outside, and she had trouble coming in long enough to write these stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story #1 \u2013 The Clover Leaf Weevil.\u00a0The BugLady took a few \u201cthrow-away shots\u201d of this little (3\/8\u201d long) beetle as it crawled along a boardwalk in a wetland, and she made a few inaccurate guesses about its identity, but the sun was bright and she couldn\u2019t really see the image on the screen, and then she and the beetle went their separate ways.\u00a0Turned out to be a completely different beetle than she thought, one that apparently took a wrong turn at the start of the boardwalk. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a weevil<\/a>, a weevil that has gone through more than a dozen combinations and permutations of scientific names since it was first described in 1763 (\u201cA rose by any other name\u2026<\/em>.\u201d) and that can still be found under multiple names in the contemporary literature.\u00a0 Some of the names resulted when the species was described and named by one person, but had already been described and named by another (18th<\/sup>\u00a0century entomologists received specimens from contacts all over the world, and communication among them was slow). Other name changes happened when the family or subfamily or genus of the weevil was revised (and some of those changes were not embraced by others in the field).\u00a0The BugLady gets the feeling that the dust has not settled on this weevil\u2019s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clover, or Sandy, Leaf Weevil (we\u2019ll go with\u00a0Donus zoilus<\/em>) is in the Snout\/Bark beetle family Curculionidae.\u00a0It\u2019s the only member of its genus in our area, but there are a lot more genus members globally, and it\u2019s not from around here.\u00a0It was originally found in the \u201cPalearctic realm\u201d \u2013 Europe and Asia between the Arctic and North Africa\/India.\u00a0With a little help from its friends (us), it jumped the Big Pond and came to live in the Nearctic realm (North America between the Arctic and Mexico). It made its North American debut in Quebec in 1853, and now it\u2019s present over about three-quarters of the country.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

View some glamour shots [ 1 <\/a>, 2 <\/a>].\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its habitat is listed as grasslands, clearings, roadsides, and edges, and while adults may feed on a few plants that are not in the Pea family (the BugLady can recall no members of the Pea family along that boardwalk), the\u00a0raison d’\u00eatre<\/em>\u00a0for both adults and larvaeis eating agricultural clovers, especially alfalfa.\u00a0Larval host plants include alfalfa, red, white, crimson, and alsike clovers, and sweet clovers (sweet clovers (the Devil Incarnate), of which they may consume as much as they can hold).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both adult and larval Clover leaf weevils feed at night or on cloudy days, and shelter on\/in the ground in the sunlight. The larvae\/grubs<\/a>\u00a0make small holes in the leaves.\u00a0Most sources said that unless they occur in high numbers, they\u2019re not a major crop pest (unlike the much smaller, Alfalfa leaf weevil).\u00a0The grubs are parasitized by the larvae of this lovely little ichneumon wasp<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s only one brood per year \u2013 females place eggs in and around the host plants in fall. Most eggs hatch then and the larvae overwinter, feeding when it\u2019s warm enough and resting when it\u2019s not, then pupating<\/a>\u00a0and becoming adults in spring.\u00a0Any eggs that overwinter hatch in spring. Newly-emerged adults feed and then aestivate (suspend operations) for part of the summer, reactivating and laying eggs<\/a> in fall. Larvae chew on plants in spring, and adults chew on plants in fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story #2 – Recent Spider Adventure.\u00a0The BugLady headed to the laundromat the other day.\u00a0 She got a few miles down the road and noticed (belatedly) a Cross Orbweaver on a strand of web on the inside of the driver’s side window (\u201calong came a spider and sat down beside her<\/em>\u2026\u201d).\u00a0She found an uninhabited side road and pulled way over to the left, so the side of the car was in grass, opened the window and nudged the spider out, hoping to move it away from the car.\u00a0When she got to the laundromat, the windblown spider was curled tight, clinging to the side of the car below the mirror.\u00a0It stayed there while the laundry went around, and then held on for the ride home.\u00a0The BugLady lifted her off with a leafy twig, and the spider recovered on the porch rail. Spiders are tough!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"dragonfly<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Story #3 \u2013 An Exuberance of Dragonflies. We experienced a wonderful, three-day dragonfly migration from August 30 into September 1, and in the run-up to that migration, the BugLady enjoyed some amazing walks through big feeding swarms, with darners cruising past, inches away.\u00a0As she went out to the hawk tower on Sunday, darners and saddlebags were in the air everywhere, with even more jumping up from the grass as she passed.\u00a0When she scanned for incoming hawks, the view through her binoculars was dragonflies as far out as she could see, in all directions.\u00a0Magic!\u00a0Abruptly, at 1:00 PM, the wind shifted a bit and it was over, and only the stragglers remained.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go outside, look at bugs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BugLady<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady has been playing outside, and she had trouble coming in long enough to write these stories. 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