No Boys Allowed! - White-fringed Weevil

This Broad-nosed Weevil (subfamily Entiminae) was enjoying my mom's red dahlias the other afternoon; the contrasting colors created such a beautiful portrait that I couldn't help snapping some photos. The feature that stood out to me the most was the white band running around the edge of the weevil's elytra and pronotum, suggesting that it belonged to the genus Naupactus, or White-fringed Weevils. I'm afraid I can't determine the species with certainty, but the most likely candidate is Naupactus peregrinus. Another option is N. leucoloma, because I'm not sure if N. peregrinus would be found this far north. On the other hand, my specimen is lighter than N. leucoloma. So for now I think I'll go with N. peregrinus.

The White-fringed Weevil (or Beetle) is a kind of Snout Beetle (family Curculionidae). Her wide snout is known as a rostrum. Like other weevils, her antennae are elbowed and clubbed, and the first segment fits into a groove in the side of the snout. The adults can't fly, possessing only crude underwings. Both adults and larvae are considered pests, for they chew holes in fruit, nuts, and other parts of plants.

Most species of Naupactus reproduce by parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction in which the egg cells are not fertilized. Thus, a species can be composed entirely of females and still propagate. For instance, in N. cervinus, "Each generation is composed of only females (thelytokous) that come from the same mother. According to Benjamin Normark (1996), parthenogenetic weevils are apomictic; meiosis does not occur and all female offspring are genetically identical to their mothers, except for mutations. Traditionally, hybridization and polyploidy were the main explanations for the origin of asexuality in weevils; however, Marcela Rodriguero, et al. (2010) suggests another possible explanation: the parthenogenisis inductor bacterium Wolbachia pipientis. The endosymbiont bacterial genome can produce drastic consequences on the evolution of its host species, such as extinction or sex role reversal."

References:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/30841 (Naupactus)
http://bugguide.net/node/view/355601 (N. peregrinus)
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/3104/3104-1571/3104-1571.html
http://www.cotton.ncsu.edu/ccn/2001/ccn-01-7a.htm (on cotton in NC)
http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43894275/PDF
http://www.entsoc.org/PDF/Pubs/Periodicals/JEE/JEETOCS/PDF/ec039800708.pdf (Management of White-fringed Beetle Grub Damage to Sweet Potato with Adulticide Treatments)
http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/subinfo.cfm?sub=11523
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/field/beetles/whitefringed_beetles.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18040867 (New Data on the Cytology of Parthenogenetic Weevils)
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexer2a.htm (Apomixis: Parthenogenesis & Agamospermy)
http://www.nzpps.org/journal/50/nzpp_503270.pdf (Genetic Comparison Of White-fringed Weevil
Species and Populations by RAPD-PCR)