Acorn Weevil Larvae

He's just a squirrel trying to get a nut or rather a legless, grub-like acorn weevil larvae emerging from a nut.

Yup, here are a couple interesting pictures I took of an acorn giving birth to an acorn weevil. It stands to reason that we would come across something like this. Between Emilie, JoAnne and I we've been picking up acorns from our front yard for weeks now. I am guessing well over a thousand already, maybe more, and they're still falling. We actually had a contest last night to see who could fill up their bucket the fastest, it was me against the girls. The girls claimed victory but I've filed a grievance and expect the ruling to be overturned. I won't get into specifics but it was ugly some of the tactics they used...

Anyway, I digress...you can see the little tucker struggling to make his way out or perhaps in, how would you tell. He looked stuck and the hole didn't look big enough so he didn't make too much progress on my watch. He might be out by now but I don't plan on digging through the trash to see.

The adult acorn weevil is a brown colored beetle about 3/8 inch long, and has a very long thin snout. The female uses her long snout to make a small hole in a developing acorn on the tree. She lays several eggs within the hole. Her eggs hatch and the creamy white, grub-like larva feeds on the developing acorn inside the nut until fall. The larva grows to 1/4 to 3/8 inch in length and is off-white in color with a brown head. The legless grub is curved and fat in the middle, tapering toward both ends. The larvae within the acorn on the tree fall to the ground in the nut in the late summer or fall.

In the fall the fully grown acorn weevil larva chews a perfectly round 1/8 inch hole in the side of the nut and emerges. The acorn larvae then tunnel into the soil to complete development. They remain in the soil for one to two years before emerging as a new adult weevil to repeat the process.

Part of the reason you find so many "wormy" or "holey" nuts under the trees is because the squirrels leave them behind. It appears the squirrels are able to select the good acorns and hickory nuts during their fall frenzy of nut gathering and burial. This leaves only "wormy" nuts for you.