Giraffe Neck Weevil - Cameron Park

I want to use this post to talk about a cool looking animal.

That animal would be the giraffe neck weevil.

So what is the giraffe neck weevil? Its scientific name is Trachelophorus giraffe. It is both endemic and indigenous to Madagascar. It is a “new” species, meaning that it wasn’t discovered until 2008. This weevil shows no aggression towards other species, and has no known predators (the only potential predator would be insects who try and eat the eggs). They are small creatures that rarely grow more than an inch in length and there are 3 ways to recognize one:

1      They have absurdly long necks- this is a sexually dimorphic trait (males have the longer necks)

2      They have a bright red elytra covering their wings

 .      They are only found on giraffe beetle tree (Dichaetanthera arborea) which is also only found in madagascar. They rarely, if ever, leave their tree.

The male’s neck is used for combat. They compete with other males in order to get access to mates. The female sits by and watches and then will mate with whoever the winner is. The loser is rarely harmed, and he just scurries away. When laying eggs, the female will roll a leaf from the tree into a sushi roll, lay the egg inside, and then cut the roll off so it falls to the forest floor. When the baby weevil comes out, it eats its way through the leaf, finds a tree, and the whole process starts all over again.

And that is essentially all the information on the giraffe neck weevil.

Here’s a cool video from BBC if you want to watch them mate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN-WjdA6uUo