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Curculio
Related Category: Zoology: Invertebrates
(krky´l), name applied to various weevils (members of the snout beetle family, or Curculionidae), especially those that attack fruit.
Curculionoidea Superfamily, United States, Curculionidae Family, Order Coleoptera, Billbugs, Superfamily Rhynchophora
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The Curculionidae form one of the largest families amongst the Coleoptera, the number of species described exceeding 20,000, arranged in 1150 genera. The antennae are elbowed, and clavate, with the basal portion inserted in a groove.
Other insects eaten include potato beetles, squash bugs, curculio beetle, and larvae of all kinds of insects including gypsy and brown-tail moths and tent caterpillar [7].
These include the ground beetles (family Carabidae) and some 'true weevils' (family Curculionidae), but also some desert and cave-dwelling species of other families.
Woodworm beetles (Anobiidae family) can eat furniture and wood floors; weevils (Curculionoidae superfamily) attack crops, such as cotton, apples, corn, and more. The Colorado, or potato, beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata can destroy a potato crop.
These include the leaf beetles (family Chysomelidae) that have a green colouring very similar to their habitat on tree leaves. More complex camouflage also occurs, as with some weevils (family Curculionidae), ...
Some estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at as high as 100 million, but 1 million is a more accepted figure. The largest taxonomic family, the Curculionidae (the weevils or snout beetles), also belongs to this order.
 See also: Beetle, Weevil, Aphid, Potato Beetle, Fly
  
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