Curculionidae Latreille, 1802

Berx, Peter, Bosmans, Bart, Dekoninck, Wouter, Janssen, Marc, Stassen, Eugène & Crevecoeur, Luc, 2023, Faunistic survey of myrmecophilous and other ant-associated beetles and spiders in the Belgian province of Limburg (Araneae, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Belgian Journal of Entomology 141, pp. 1-61 : 14

Curculionidae Latreille, 1802

From the curculionid beetles or weevils we selected 14 species mentioned in literature and supplemented them with our own observations, as symbiotic with ants (Annex). Some weevils have a reputation for being pests that can cause considerable damage to cereals and trees. One weevil, not included in the list but usually mentioned in relation with ants is Curculio glandium Marsham, 1802 (4.0- 6.7 mm) or acorn weevil, common in Limburg. This weevil drills a hole in fallen acorns and lays its eggs in them. For their development, the larvae eat the acorns inside, with the result that large numbers of acorns can no longer germinate. After hibernation, the adult beetles leave the acorn, leaving it hollowed out. These freed up shelters are gratefully colonised by the minute ant Temnothorax nylanderi (Förster, 1850) , whereby several acorns lying close to each other can be inhabited by specimens of the same colony (personal observation of the first author). Besides the damage they can do to healthy trees, such as Strophosoma capitatum (3.0- 5.2 mm) eating the buds of oak trees ( ROUGON, 1995), many weevils are ubiquitous where dead trees are found, the ideal environment to complete their life cycle. Here they usually share their breeding sites with our xylobiont ants.