So I planted hollyhocks as previously discussed and they've grown quite nicely. I noticed these tiny weevils on the buds . . . never seen them before but tried googling "hollyhock weevil". Bingo, that is actually what these are called, aka Apion longirostre. The "long" in the specific name must refer to the snout which is very long especially for a creature so small (ha). Garden websites refer to these as a pest which can and will spoil your hollyhock seeds. I'm letting them be of course, to see what comes of these tiny invaders of the hollyhock kingdom. By the way the nearest hollyhocks to the ones in my backyard are 150 feet away as the beetle flies, over two houses, several fences and a large tecomara hedge. I'm assuming that is where the weevils came from . . . I'll go look to verify some are on Peter's mailbox hollyhock patch. UPDATE: Yes, there are some there. But before that, from whence did they come?
Here is an absolutely stunning photo of this species; with the naked eye or a
non-macro lens you can't really see that they are . . . fuzzy?
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