Rose Curculio

This bright red weevil is a Rose Curculio (Merhynchites bicolor) they are found throughout most of the United States as well as Southern Canada. They get their common name from the  host plant they feed on. The one pictured here was found in the prairie feeding on primrose. I brought it home to add to my collection and placed it on a sunflower to photograph. They are uniformly bright red with black legs and a long black snout it is the two-tone coloration that earned them the species name of bicolor.

These beetles like rose pollen so much that they rarely wait for the bloom to open and give up its delicious treat, instead the beetle will chew a hole through the side of the rose bud to reach the pollen. The female will lay her eggs in the fruit (rose hips) of the plant and the resulting larvae will develop inside. This feeding can cause significant damage to roses, much to the irritation of rose gardeners everywhere. There are over the counter pesticides you can use to treat your roses to eliminate these garden pests. They typically prefer wild roses over cultivars and seem to like white or yellow roses best.