We held our OSU Buckeye Environmental Horticulture Team strategic planning meeting this week at Mohican Lodge and Conference Center. A hike in Mohican State Forest revealed that Yellow Poplar Weevils (Odontopus calceatus, family Curculionidae) are producing noticeable damage on their namesake host in that part of the state.
Although yellow poplar weevil is the common name approved by the Entomological Society of America, the weevil is sometimes called the sassafras weevil, magnolia weevil, magnolia leafminer and tuliptree leafminer.
It’s difficult to explain the weevil’s odd host range using the classic taxonomy of its hosts.
Tuliptrees and magnolias belong to the family Magnoliaceae in the order Magnoliales, while sassafras belongs to the family Lauraceae in the order Laurales.
However, all three are now grouped in the clade Magnoliids based on phylogenetic patterns. Still, the three hosts seem like strange bedfellows.
The small (2/16 inch long), oval-shaped yellow poplar weevils range in color from black to brownish-black to reddish-brown and have deeply grooved wing covers (elytra). Although they are good flyers, the weevils often elect to fold their legs to “play dead” when disturbed; a defense strategy that is common among weevils. In some people’s eyes, yellow poplar weevils resemble ticks, which may generate calls to extension offices concerning “flying ticks” during outbreak years. Ticks can’t fly.
Weevils are beetles with their chewing mouthparts located at the end of their snouts (rostrum). Yellow poplar weevils damage leaves in two ways.
Overwintered adults may chew holes in leaves that are unfurling from buds. The small holes become large, ragged holes as the leaves expand.
As the leaves expand further, the adults consume the lower epidermis and leaf mesophyll leaving behind the upper epidermis. Eventually, the thin epidermis dries out, turns brown,…
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