Add Photo to Journal

Photo Credit: Maureen Gilmer

The female snout nose weevil punctures holes in agaves to create a place for its eggs, which develop into hungry grubs that devastate the plants.

Landscape designers are experts at studying a neighborhood to see what plants grow well in the immediate microclimate. If there aren’t any older specimens of a certain plant, chances are it’s been wiped out at some point by a freeze, drought, disease or pest infestation. I should have known when I found just one well-established agave around here in Palm Springs. All the other agaves were still young – in plantings less than 5 years old.

Now, agave is about as tough a plant as you’ll find, and it takes a lot of abuse to cause it to wilt. In fact, nothing kills it. At least that’s what I thought – until my biggest specimen, an Agave americana ‘Media Picta’, suddenly melted down overnight, leaving just the central cone of tightly packed leaves upright. The whole thing just flopped over at my touch to reveal a shocking lack of roots! The insides had become a brown mealy mess completely riddled with fat, white grubs that had obviously done the damage.

My desert plant guru, Clark Moorten, smiled when I showed him the tragic remnant.

Add Photo to Journal

Photo Credit: Maureen Gilmer

This upside-down agave reveals the mealy tissue and the guilty grub that severed every root from this afflicted plant.

“That’s the worm in the bottom of the tequila bottle,” he said. “They’re the grub of the agave snout nose weevil [Scyphophorus acupunctatus]. They devastated the blue agave fields in Mexico. We’ve always had them in this area, which is why you won’t see any big Agave americana species in the valley. It’s their favorite meal!”

Since then, I’ve never planted another agave – except in pots where they don’t have any contact with natural soil. (That’s where the weevil pupates from grub to adult.)

The snout weevil is about ½ an inch long and distinguished by its very pointy proboscis. When ready to reproduce, the female beetle finds a nice succulent agave and sticks its long nose deep into the tissues of the fleshy central cone of tightly packed leaves. If you look closely, you can spot the brownish puncture long before the plant shows any other weevil symptoms.

The beetle’s saliva introduces fast-moving microbes to the inner tissues, which spread at an alarming rate. The microbe-infested flesh becomes more edible for the female’s young larvae, speeding up the plant’s demise.