What are these bugs?

September 10, 2009 3:16 AM

What are these bugs [1,2,3] that are currently climbing all over my window bird feeder?

They were not there just a moment ago when I put some bird seed in. Then boom. An infestation.

For scale the seeds are sunflower hearts and the bugs are about 3-4mm.

posted by srboisvert to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

Best answer: They look a lot like weevils to me.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 3:26 AM on September 10, 2009

Response by poster: Vine weevil would make sense since that window is right between a wall of wisteria and a fence covered in jasmine. I guess this means I am going to have to pay extra attention to my succulent collection now.
posted by srboisvert at 4:23 AM on September 10, 2009

Best answer: They were probably in the birdseed to begin with: if I don't have my birdseed in an airtight container, eventually those little black weevils hatch out of it. Gross, kinda, but harmless, and more than likely a bird will eat the bugs, too.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:35 AM on September 10, 2009

Hard to see from the picture, but they might be a box elder beetle.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 5:58 AM on September 10, 2009

It is hard to tell, but they look a lot like Box Elder Beetles to me. My mom's house has been infested with these things for years near a couple windows, they can make a big mess.
posted by malphigian at 6:10 AM on September 10, 2009

These are not Box Elder Beetles. srboisvert is in the UK; Box Elder Beetles are an American species and (as far as I know) don't occur here. The Box Elder Beetle doesn't have the kind of proboscis that these appear to have, and is considerably larger than these beetles.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 6:18 AM on September 10, 2009

Response by poster: AzraelBrown - that would make sense since the weevils suddenly appeared. I couldn't figure out how they could have found the seed so fast and in such numbers if they had been in the neighbouring vines. I did include a small amount of regular seed from an old bag that i found in closet so that is where they probably came from.
posted by srboisvert at 5:20 AM on September 11, 2009

Here seems to be exactly what you've got - including a lot of entomological info on the critters. Glad to be of help!
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:30 PM on September 11, 2009

Response by poster: I'd just like add that these buggers destroyed a beautiful echeveria perle nuremberg (the larvae ate the stem from the inside out) and also killed off an nice big green aeonium. Next winter I am declaring war on them before I set up my succulents for overwintering.
posted by srboisvert at 1:58 AM on June 12, 2010