We just received an unclear message from one of our readers. He wrote to us: most of the acorns have a small hole and the acorns are empty. We aren’t confident we know what he is asking, but we think he might be curious about what would cause a small hole in an acorn and then eat the inside of the nut. If this is not what he wanted to know, we encourage him to write us again with a more precise question.

Acorn weevils and their larvae infest nut trees and their seeds, so we believe these creatures have likely caused the damage to the acorns our reader refers to. Adult acorn weevils are brown beetles with long thin snouts. The females lay their eggs inside developing nuts on the tree in the middle of summer. These eggs hatch into acorn weevil larvae, which are cream-colored with a brown head. The larvae feed on the nut core until fall. When the acorns fall to the ground in autumn, the larva chews a perfect circle-sized hole in the nut and emerges. These plump larvae then burrow into the soil and remain there for one to two years. Eventually, they arise as adult acorn weevils and restart the process.

Overall, we believe the acorn weevil larvae are what caused the holes and emptiness in our reader’s acorns.

Summary

Article Name

Acorn Weevil Larvae Cause Empty Acorns

Description

We just received an unclear message from one of our readers. He wrote to us: most of the acorns have a small hole and the acorns are empty. We aren’t confident we know what he is asking, but we think he might be curious about what would cause a small hole in an acorn and then eat the inside of the nut. If this is not what he wanted to know, we encourage him to write us again with a more precise question.

Author

Dori Franklin