Giraffe-necked Weevil

• GeneralThe male's neck is three times the length of the female's, and he fights with it.
• anatomíaThe males have a neck several times the length of their body, which they use to roll leaves into a protective nest for a single egg.
• The male's disproportionate neck, two or three times longer than the female's, is a weapon: males shove one another with it for access to her.
• It is the shorter-necked female that rolls a leaf into a perfect cylinder, lays a single egg inside and cuts the leaf so that it falls to the ground.
• It was described in 1860, and its dependence on a handful of plants in a badly threatened forest makes it vulnerable.
• The male's neck is disproportionately long, up to two or three times longer than the female's, and he uses it in ritual fights over access to females: they push neck against neck.
• The female uses hers, which is shorter, as a tool: she rolls a leaf of the shrub into a perfect cylinder, lays a single egg inside and cuts the roll free; it falls to the ground and serves as both nest and first meal for the larva.
• That folding work is precise and stereotyped, and it is the reason these beetles are called leaf-rollers.
• It is endemic to Madagascar and depends on a single genus of host plant, which makes it vulnerable to the island's deforestation.
• It was described in 1860, and its appearance has made it one of Madagascar's most photographed insects.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Rainforest; on shrubs of the genus Dichaetanthera

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachelophorus_giraffa