Longest weevil

There are over 60,000 species of weevil currently known to and described by science, making them among the most numerous of all beetle types and also among the most diverse in form. Many weevils are very small, but the longest species presently known, the giraffe weevil Lasiorhynchus barbicornis, attains a total length of up to 9 cm (3.54 in) in adult male specimens. Adult females are much shorter – only up to 5 cm (1.96 in) long. The longest species of any beetle type native to New Zealand, this highly distinctive species earns its common name from its extremely elongated rostrum (snout), which in the male can measure nearly as long as its entire body and superficially resembles the neck of a giraffe.

This remarkable species was first made known to western science when it was formally described and named in 1775 by the eminent Danish entomologist Johan Fabricius, who based his description upon some specimens collected by Joseph Banks in 1769 during Captain James Cook's first voyage to New Zealand. However, the much bigger, exceedingly long-snouted males looked so different from the far smaller, very much shorter-snouted females that initially Fabricius mistakenly classified them as two entirely separate species.