COLEOPTERA > POLYPHAGA > CURCULIONOIDEA > Curculionidae

I previously said 'brown', but the first species featured here, Polydrusus cervinus, should perhaps be described as a not so solidly 'green' weevil with a mottled appearance that  darkens with age and, to my eye, is often more 'brown' than 'green'. The photos show three different individuals with subtle colour variations.

The second, Polydrusus tereticollis, is definitely more 'brown' than 'green', particularly the rather pale individual featured here. Normally they're darker with a rather dappled appearance and distinctive pattern. As noted below, this particular species has only been officially recorded a couple of times from Dorset.

And finally, Liophloeus tessulatus, the sole representative of the genus and one of the largest broad-nosed weevils with some specimens reaching 11mm long. Notable features are wide, square shoulders and antennae with a contrasting dark club.

In my introduction to the Entiminae > Phyllobiini or Polydrusini tribes on the previous page, I mentioned that the recorded sightings of some of these supposedly common and well-photographed weevils was surprisingly low, so for reference I thought it would be useful to list the top species from my local area.

Phyllobius is by far the most frequently recorded genus with nearly 23,000 confirmed entries. However, that number reduces drastically, and disproportionally for whatever reason, when I look at the two sets of records that cover my area. In the whole of Dorset (VC9) there were just 155, and in South Hampshire (VC11) only 74. But there's no point looking at old records, so I usually concentrate on just the last ten years. The records become more meaningful, but the numbers of each species become so low that the two areas may as well be added together. It's not ideal as some of the records will be from West Dorset or East Hampshire rather than East Dorset and the general New Forest area that I'm interested in, but it's the only information available as none of these species are covered by the weevil recording section of the official UK Beetle Recording Scheme. The associated NBN (National Biodiversity Network) Atlas, which collates data from approved sources, such as iRecord, is the only online resource for this type of information, so it's a case of making the best of the data that has been submitted.

So, for Phyllobius, there were a combined total of 104 records [63 + 41] over the past ten years for the two areas, with the top five species being: Phyllobius pomaceus [39], Phyllobius pyri [27], Phyllobius roboretanus [17], Phylliobius viridaeris [15] and then three other species with just one or two sightings.

Using the same criteria for Polydrusus, which had substantially less records nationwide, the total was 69 [29 + 40] locally. The top species was Polydrusus formosus [50] with most of the records coming from South Hampshire, then Polydrusus cervinus [11], and that was pretty much it, apart from a couple of odd records for Polydrusus confluens, pterygomalis and tereticollis from Dorset.       

For completeness I then looked at the other two species. Liophloeus tessulatus was well recorded overall [1524], but with only [12] locally over the past ten years. The records for Pachyrhinus lethierryi [432] were a fair bit lower with only three locally that have been recorded since my last update - see footnote.

Although checking available distribution data and records can only provide an indication of the species that have been seen in a given area and comparatively how they rank, I always find it a useful exercise. I only started photographing weevils about four years ago and very casually, which is why I don't understand why I'm able to feature certain species that are so rarely recorded. I can only guess, that like me, very few people are going to go to the trouble of recording species where the identity is going to be questionable from photos.

Footnote: the above data was updated on 29th January 2025 and it was interesting to note how many more sightings have been recorded since the last version of this page when the same data was checked in April 2023. At that time, the total number of Phyllobius records was around 17,500, which was great, but it's now nearly 23,000, so obviously some 5,500 new records in less than two years. That's a 31% increase across the country, which pretty much equates to the 36% increase locally, albeit still a comparatively low figure as the 230 records from Dorset and South Hampshire together are just 1% of the total. I'm not sure how or why there has been such an increase or how all of those individual submissions could have been checked, but that's what the current data is now showing.

Updated, Jan.25 (v.4)