Giraffe Weevils - a 'long' time coming

Creature Feature

Your monthly dose of Aotearoa New Zealand's wacky, whimsical, and wonderful native and endemic species

Issue: February 2025

Let's rubberneck a curiously clumsy but instantly recognisable critter. By Jasmine Starr

When you look at a giraffe weevil, the only word that comes to mind is ‘long’. Male giraffe weevils are described so accurately by ‘long’ that every other adjective gives up and floats away. Eventually, a few brave words manage to step forward. Lengthy. Brown! Bizarre. Angular. Leggy? Long…  

Every article I read on this topic contains the word ‘long’ a minimum of four times, and this piece is no exception. Frankly, it’s no wonder they’ve been dubbed NZ’s Longest Beetle. 
 

But what about their length breaks the analytical centre of every writer’s brain? Well, contrary to whatever you’re guessing, it’s not because of their neck. Despite their name, giraffe weevils do not have notable necks – and aren’t true weevils to boot! They’re part of a slightly different beetle family, Brentidae, differentiated by their straight antennae.  

Clearly, a giraffe is the first thing that comes to mind - a male Giraffe Weevil in Matuku Reserve. Credit: Christina Painting. Creative Commons License.

Te reo names for this creature are far more accurate. Giraffe weevils are called Tūwhaipapa (or Tūwhaitara) after the Māori god of waka, as its wood-textured body looks very pointy and boat-like. They’re also known as pepeke nguturoa, pepeke placing it within a wider group of similar insects. The root word, peke, means ‘to spring, leap, or jump’, while ngutu roa translates to long-beaked (which is why it shares its name with the kiwi!)  

But the giraffe weevil’s length doesn’t come from a bird-style beak, either. No – it’s because they have a massive, massive nose.  
 

While the body tends to measure around 8 to 9 centimetres in length, the nose (rostrum) of a male giraffe weevil is a whopping 4.5 centimetres long. Yes, you read that right – the giraffe weevil’s nose alone makes up half their total length. Imagine having a nose that big. How would you move around? How would you stop yourself from bumping into everything?  
 

Well, the truth is, they don’t. The male giraffe weevil’s proportions are so unwieldy they find it incredibly difficult to fly in any particular direction and often bump into very large and avoidable objects. This means they very rarely fly, as they could easily crash straight into whatever danger they were trying to avoid.  
 

No, instead of flying, they much prefer pretending to die. When giraffe weevils are frightened, they will drop directly backwards, fall to the ground, and lay still. They can do this for up to an hour. This fatality-faking phenomenon (appropriately called “apparent death”) is found throughout the animal kingdom, from possums to amphibians to even some fish. These long-nosed bugs are so good at deceit, they humble even Pinocchio.  

For all this talk about the male giraffe weevils’ nose, we have to give the females credit, too. Unfortunately, females don’t have the same majestic nose. In fact, female giraffe weevils’ anatomy is so dissimilar from the males’, they were originally categorised as a different species. But their nose being different doesn’t mean they’re any lesser. After all, can you use your nose to bore through wood?  

Thankfully, the male's sense of direction is preserved in at least one activity. Male and female Giraffe Weevil. Credit: Christopher Stevens. Creative Commons License.

The female giraffe weevil uses her own unique nose to drill deep holes into trees, where she will lay a single egg. While she bores through the trunk, her mandibles collect the resulting debris. She burrows into the bark at a 45º angle, taking a break every half-millimetre to clear the sawdust off her mandibles.  
 

While the female drills the hole, the male stands guard, just in case she gets stuck nose-first and he needs to yank her out. She needs to make sure the hole is big enough, or the hatchling won’t ever be able to escape the tree. Giraffe weevils specifically target dead and dying trees, as a healthy tree will repair the hole before the hatchling is able to escape.  

When young giraffe weevils are born, they don’t leave their cozy nest right away. Instead, they spend two years of their lives alone, in the dark, snacking on fungi as it decomposes the tree. When the now-full-grown giraffe weevils finally emerge, they only live for a few frantic weeks. And, of course, they spend all of that time desperately trying to mate.  
 

For mating priority, male giraffe weevils will sword fight each other with their gargantuan noses, and that’s not something you hear every day. A fight consists of both weevils trying to stick their nose underneath the other, finding the leverage to flip their opponent off the tree. The goal is to fling the other guy away dramatically, so he flies backwards and gets carried off by the wind. This is no doubt the most embarrassing way to disappoint a potential suitor.  

When they’re not getting flung around by noses, you can find giraffe weevils chilling on tree trunks in the warmer months, especially around February. They’re found across the North Island, as well as in a few northwestern parts of the South Island – as far south as Greymouth. One singular giraffe weevil was found on a foodshed in Fiordland in 2012, not there specifically to skew the distribution range and spite researchers, but most likely imported by mistake.  
 

The further north you go, you can find giraffe weevils with progressively smaller bodies and increasingly bigger noses. Which means, if this trend continues linearly, somewhere in the northern hemisphere there is an insect 1 millimetre long with a 5.4 metre nose. Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for our sense of whimsy), giraffe weevils are endemic to New Zealand. 

Love bugs? Vote for New Zealand's Bug of the Year!

Held by our friends at the Entomological Society of New Zealand, Bug of the Year draws attention to the myriads of unique and amazing invertebrates in Aotearoa New Zealand. Vote for your top three favourite bugs and lend your voice to their conservation. Voting Closes 17 February 2025. 

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