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596
COLLEGE ENTOMOLOGY
combination of these and white. Head hypognathous, free, small, somewhat
produced. Eyes large. Antennre arising in front of eyes, serrate or pectinate and
usually clavate. Mouth parts with well-developed mandibles, palpi, and a
stalked mentum. Prothorax prominent, somewhat triangular and usually wider
than long. Legs short, hind femora thickened and sometimes with a marginal
tooth. Tarsi five-segmented, first elongated and fourth very small. Claws with
a basal hook. Elytra smooth or striated, covered with hairs and scales; truncate
and shorter than abdomen. Wings usually present. Abdomen robust; five free
sternites. Larvre undergo a hypermetamorphosis
in which the
first stage is more or less caraboid
with well-developed legs
and spined or toothed thoracic
plates to aid in entering the
smooth hard seeds. After entering
the host the first molt occurs
and the body becomes eruciform
in most but not all species, and
partially or wholly apodous;
blind, and white or yellowish in
color.
These remarkable insects feed
almost wholly upon the seeds of
legumes but a very few species
have also been reared on the
seeds of palms, including the
coconut. The adults rarely visit
flowers and hibernate in the
FIG. 205. The bean weevil, Acantlloscelides obtectus
(Say), and greatly enlarged body scales. temperate regions. In the tropics
and in heated buildings in
the cooler regions they may remain active and breed throughout much of the
year. The eggs are glued to the outside of the pods or seeds or may be laid in
the larval and adult burrows within the seeds. The eggs are very conspicuous
on black seeds but scarcely visible on white ones.
The life histories may be quite complicated but are usually one of two com·
man types, single brooded and many brooded. Single-brooded forms, like the
common pea weevil, oviposit on the pods of green peas. The larvre, which soon
hatch, bore through the pods and directly into the seeds before they become
dry and hard. Development in the seeds may continue after harvest and in
listed or described under it, and the genus BfUcllus, as used by him, referred to cerambydd
beetles. (See F. E. Schulze, W. Kukenthal, and K. Heider, Nomenclator Anim. genera. Pruss .
.A.kad. Wissench. 1;460,1926.)
It might be well to point out that there are three families in Zoology which are likely to be
contused: LARIIDJE Bedel 1891 (COLEOPTERA), from the genus Larz'a Scopoli 1763;
LARIDlE (AVES), from the genus LaTUS Linn. 1758; and LARRIDlE Leach 1815, Stephens
1829 (HYMENOPTERA). from the genus Lana Fab. 1758. .