SB 
818 
C578 
ENT 
No. 21, SECOND SERIES. 
United States Department of Agriculture, 
DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
THE STRAWBERRY WEEVIL. 
(Anthonomus signatus Say.) 
GENERAL APPEARANCE AND NATURE OF ATTACK. 
Just before the blossoms of the strawberry expand they are some- 
times attacked by an insect which severs them from the stem. This 
insect is the strawberry weevil, a minute snout-beetle, 
and the severing of the buds is accomplished by the 
female in the process of oviposition. The weevil first 
deposits an egg in the bud and then punctures or cuts 
the stem below it in such manner that in a few days 
it drops to the ground. Within the severed bud the 
larva hatched from this egg develops, and trans- 
forms to pupa and afterwards to beetle. 
The adult of the strawberry weevil measures only 
a tenth of an inch in length, and is provided with a 
slender, slightly curved snout, about half as long as 
the body, to which are attached its jointed antenne. 
The color of this insect varies from nearly black to 
dull red, and each elytron or wing cover is orna- 
mented just behind the middle with a dark spot sur- 
rounded with whitish pubescence. (See figs. 1 and 2.) 

Fig. 1.—Anthonomus 
signatus: Adult bee- 
tle—greatly enlarged 
(author’s illustra- 
tion). 
The presence of the weevil in strawberry beds is manifested almost 

Fig. 2.— Anthono- 
mus stgnatus: 
Adult beetle— 
greatly enlarged 
(from Riley). 
entirely by the decreased number of blossoms and by 
the severed buds and stems, the diminutive size of 
the beetle protecting it from observation. Nor is the 
destruction of the buds likely to be noticed until some 
time after the insect has been at work. Hence it hap- 
pens that injury even over wide areas is often attrib- 
uted to hail, frost, or to some other cause than the 
right one. Appearing, as the insect so often does, in 
great numbers almost from the outset, its injuries are 
severe even in seasons when only a moderate percent- 
age of a crop is lost, because the blossoms chiefly in- 
jured are the earliest, and consequently the shortage 
is largely in the early fruit, or that which would have 
commanded the highest market price. 
FOOD PLANTS AND RAVAGES. 
Fortunately the weevil is restricted to the staminate varieties of 
the strawberry and to such pistillate varieties as are imperfect and 
furnish a considerable quantity of pollen, since it is this substance 
