I love weevils! I’ve probably said that before; I’ll undoubtedly say it again. So, I was grinning like a Cheshire cat when I spotted these gorgeous mini-beasties.

Perched on the tiny bundles of fruit of the plant they’re named for, these are Figwort weevils (Cionus scrophulariae). Their furry looking coats of beige and brown and light grey are pure decoration (imagine having a coat like that to wear!), and probably also good camouflage. And their impressive snouts are used for sucking the juices from their plant hosts (they can also be found on Mullein), though I don’t think these two weevils were feeding – I think they were egg-laying, as I noticed tiny blobs of yellow emerging from their rear ends, and I don’t think it was pooh.

Amazingly, I managed to find a Figwort weevil larva, something I’ve never seen before. I’ve lightened this photo to show the detail a little more clearly but, as the UK Beetles website explains, they are actually dark brown, ‘almost black, and covered in a shiny and sticky secretion which makes them distasteful to predators and is thought to give some protection from parasites’. I actually find it quite difficult to comprehend that this slimy slug lookalike morphs into the complicated character that is the adult Figwort weevil.