PLUM CURCULIO

also called American Plum Weevil (Conotrachelus nenuphar), North American insect pest of the family Curculionidae (order Coleoptera); it does serious damage to a variety of fruit trees. The adult has a dark brown body, about six millimetres (1/4 inch) long, with gray and white patches and conspicuous humps on each wing case. It has the typical weevil's snout, strongly down-curved for puncturing the skin of young fruit (apple, plum, peach, or cherry) so that an egg can be deposited in each wound. An average of less than 100 eggs are produced by each female. After hatching, the legless larva burrows into the centre of the fruit, spoiling it. The larva then leaves the fruit and enters the soil, where it pupates and eventually emerges as an adult. Up to two generations occur annually. Both sexes of the adult plum curculio pass the winter in hibernation.