Mating Weevils

I found these mating Weevils on a slender creeper. Not able to identify as there is scanty info about weevils. I took this photo without using flash. You can see the nice green background which is blurred (Bokeh). Since depth of field was shallow I had to go away from extreme closeup to keep the weevils in focus.

Curculionidae, also called snout beetles or curculios (not to be confused with the genus Curculio), is the family of the “true” weevils (or snout beetles). With over 60,000 species described worldwide, it is the largest of the beetle families.

They are recognized by their distinctive long snout and geniculate antennae with small clubs; beyond that, curculionids have considerable diversity of form and size, with adult lengths ranging from 1 mm to 40 mm.

Weevils are almost entirely plant feeders, and most species are associated with a narrow range of hosts, in many cases only living on a single species. With so many species to classify and over 400 genera, the taxonomy of this family is quite complicated, and authors disagree on the number and placement of various subfamilies, tribes, and subtribes.

The word “weevil” has been made famous by the boll weevil, which lays its eggs and eats inside cotton bolls, killing the plant.

For this shot I used my trusty Canon MT-24EX macro twin light flash with diffuser. You will notice that I kept a smaller aperture and higher speed. This resulted in the background under exposed and dark. Depth of field is larger due to the fact that the aperture is small. nd I could take a very closeup shot keeping the weevils in focus.