SUPERFAMILY V. RHYNCHOPHORA Head generally produced into a beak or rostrum: gular plate absent and repre sented by a single mid-ventral suture: tarsi with four evident joints. Larvae legless and maggot-like.
The Rhynchophora are a vast assem blage of insects usually very easy to recog nize and are all plant-feeders. They are divided into four main families of which the most important are the following: The Curculionidae or weevils (figs. 17 and 2) include nearly 3o,000 known species and great numbers still await discovery in tropical lands. They are usually recognized by the pronounced rostrum or beak the clubbed elbowed antennae and the ye'ry reduced rigid palpi. The female often uses the rostrum as a boring instrument to prepare dAa 1. spa ml aa oc renudfi. eobr ewee egt eigev- sli al say ir e(n qgb. vea a. n)ud t ait frhueei soi onr ngs eabcr irt es i sy uTcs hou aol ufl yar me 1 doonybg uei tns tctiihuned te hts raomt p asi cenaxyi destructive species including the cotton boll weevil, the grain weevils and the apple blossom weevil.
The Scolytidae (Ipidae) or bark beetles bore into the bark and wood of trees and are among the most serious enemies the forester has to contend with. They are hard, cylindrical insects devoid of a rostrum and with the tibiae armed with denticles (fig. 18). They construct galleries of very definite patterns beneath the bark, and their larvae closely resemble those of the weevils.