COCONUT PLANTER'S MANUAL- 4.3 



They have a light-brown head with jaws strong enough to enable them 

 to bore their way about inside the palm. They have a stout fleshy 

 body, but no legs. They feed on living plant tissues inside the palm, 

 being entirely surrounded by their food, and protected during the 

 whole period of their development into beetles. They are full-grown 

 in two or three months, and then form their cocoons wherever they 

 happen to have been feeding inside the palm. As many as fifty larva? 

 may sometimes to be found in a single palm. 



Cocoons and Pupte. — The fully developed grub forms its cocoon by 

 winding around itself a number of tough, fibrous threads to form a 

 stout compact hollow cell, within which it remains quiet for a few 

 days. During this period it gradually shrinks to about two -thirds its 

 former size, having stopped feeding. It then changes in the pupa] 

 stage, remaining in this stage for about two weeks. The pupa is pale 

 brown at first, but becomes slightly darker before the emergence of 

 the weevil. Figure 6 shows the pupa with the snout, legs, and wings 

 closely applied to the underside of the body. 



Weevil. — After about two weeks the weevil comes out of its pupal 

 skin, but remains inside its fibre cocoon for about two weeks before 

 making its way out into the open. In some cases the cocoons are 

 packed so tightly within the cavity in the palm that some of them are 

 pressed out of their normal shape, and the weevils fail to develop 

 properly and die inside. Preliminary breeding experiments carried 

 out under laboratory conditions at Peradeniya indicate that the com- 

 plete life cycle from egg to weevil takes about four to five months, 

 but the period of development may be shorter under natural conditions 

 and in the coastal districts. 



Habits of Ovlposition. — Under laboratory conditions the female 

 weevils laid a few eggs almost daily during a period of over a month, 

 but unfortunately most of them were killed off by a fungus disease. 

 During this period the greatest number of eggs obtained from one 

 female was 231, while others laid from 50 to 200 eggs before being 

 killed by disease. Fuller details will be published later. In the 

 Dutch East Indies the maximum number of eggs obtained from a single 

 female Red Weevil was 531, and it seems highly probable that under 

 natural conditions in Ceylon a female weevil may lay considerably 

 more than 200 eggs. 



The female lays her eggs in any part of a palm where she can 

 find a wound or a soft spot. She may either first make a small hole, 



