If you want to collect the good nuts for yourself, you will have to get up early and beat the squirrels to it. It appears squirrels can select good nuts during their fall frenzy of gathering. The reason you often find so many 'wormy' or 'holey' nuts under the trees is because the squirrels leave them behind. The larvae can eat out the entire nut inside an acorn or hickory nut, making it worthless, but they do not damage the tree in any way. The larvae then tunnel into the soil, where they will stay for one to two years before emerging as a new adult weevil to repeat the process.Īcorn weevil larva next to the acorn it emerged from. When the acorns fall to the ground in autumn, the larva chews a perfectly round 1/8 inch hole in the nut and emerges in late fall or early winter. The egg hatches into a creamy white, grub-like larva that feeds inside the nut until fall. Life cycle of acorn weevilsĪdult females lay their eggs inside developing nuts on the trees during mid-summer. Larvae are creamy white colored with a brown head and can grow to be 1/4 to 3/8 inches long. Nut weevil larvae are legless grubs with a curved body that is fattest in the middle and tapering toward both ends. The adult acorn weevil ( Curculio sp.) is a brown beetle about 3/8 inches in length and with a very long, thin snout. Management is not practical and many acorns survive.Larval damage can 'kill' the acorn and it will not grow a new tree.Eggs are laid in acorns in midsummer, and larvae feed inside the nut until fall.Adult acorn weevils are brown beetles with a very long, thin snout.

Acorn weevil