Dr Weevil

This giant palm weevil rejoices under the real name of Rhynchophorus, which comes from the Greek rynchos, meaning snout, and phoras, meaning bearing. All of the weevils in this catalogue are “snout-bearing”, although this is one of the biggest. From South America, where it lives and lays its eggs in palm trees, it was named in 1795 by German naturalist and entomologist Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst – can you see the reference near the bottom of the page? The catalogue is much younger than the taxonomic names it contains, having only been put together in 1999 by a couple of weevil world experts.