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Sticker of Bluegrass billbug
Bug card No. 0569 of 4,939

Bluegrass billbug

Sphenophorus parvulus
Name means: “small”
Eats: PlantsBeetlesGardens and meadows6 legs

The bluegrass billbug is a small brown, grey or black weevil from North America. It has a long snout that curves downwards, like a little bill. It lives in grassy places, lawns and grain fields.

Lives in
North America, from Ontario and Nova Scotia south to Florida, in lawns, grassland and fields
Length
6 mm (0.24 in)
Top speed
about 0.1 km/h (0.06 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It can damage lawns and crops, but it does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The beetles nibble young shoots of grasses, corn and wheat. The larvae eat the inside of grass stems and the roots.
For real!Photo of Bluegrass billbug
Picture by Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0 us, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Bluegrass billbug about 6 mm long (0.24 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 36 seconds

How big is Bluegrass billbug compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

About a third of its whole body length is its long, curved snout.

2

It hardly ever flies. It prefers to scramble around between the plants.

3

When it eats a leaf that is still rolled up, it leaves a neat row of identical little holes.

4

The mother chews a hole in a grass stem and puts one egg inside. A mother can lay 40 to 200 eggs.

5

The white larva has no legs and hollows out the stem from the inside.

you asked

Most asked questions about Bluegrass billbug

?What does the bluegrass billbug eat?

Young grass shoots, corn and grain. It especially likes Kentucky bluegrass.

?How big is the bluegrass billbug?

About 6 millimetres long, including its long snout.

?Is the bluegrass billbug harmful?

Not to people, but it can damage lawns and crops.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Sphenophorus parvulus
Named by
Gyllenhaal, 1838
Group
Beetles
Family
Curculionidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Curculionidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Sphenophorus parvulus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Joseph Berger, Bugwood.org. CC BY 3.0 us, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Beetles

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