An Oddly Adorable Weevil That Drills Through Acorns With Her Long Snout

An oddly adorable episode of the KQED series Deep Look focuses on the acorn weevil, a fuzzy, puppet-like beetle with a long snout (rostrum) that can drill through the hard shell of an unripe acorn for both food and a place to lay her eggs. In an interesting twist, the male of the species has a much shorter rostrum, mostly because they don’t make a nest.

This fuzzy acorn weevil can’t crack open acorns like a woodpecker or chomp through them like a squirrel. Instead, she uses her incredibly long snout, called a rostrum, to power-drill through an acorn’s tough and resilient shell.