Meet the Giraffe Weevil. It’s Got a Secret Up Its Long Snout.
The New York Times
The insect, found in New Zealand, has an evolutionary trick that supports its bizarre and elongated head.
The greatest jousting competitions in the world can be found on certain rotting trees in the New Zealand bush, where hordes of males compete for the opportunity to mate. The knights are not humans but New Zealand giraffe weevils, a species of beetle with a snout like a lance. The biggest males snout-wallop each other until the other either retreats or is knocked unceremoniously from the bark. Competition is especially fierce because male giraffe weevils come in a stunning range of sizes: The largest male weevil is 30 times larger than the smallest. In human terms, this would be like having a friend who was the combined size of two adult giraffes. As male weevils grow larger, their snouts grow disproportionately long, which would seem to suggest that the biggest males use relatively more energy to wield their enormous heads. Some biologists have theorized that these exaggerated traits are what they call honest indicators of how fit the animal is as a potential mate or competitor; under this logic, a weak elk would not have the energy required to maintain enormous horns.
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