Rose weevil on a wild rose at Dutch Lake.

The rose weevil - a curious insect.

Chances are you have walked past them and never noticed them.  Even though they are a deep burgundy red and really stick out on the familiar wild rose so prevalent in Western Canada, you have to be looking for them to find them.  The rose weevil is ubiquitous throughout North America although it may be broken down into several subspecies over that range.  Rose weevils are aptly named; they feed exclusively on roses and have been known to achieve pest status with rose loving gardeners.  They happily will eat flower, pollen, buds, and rosehips, causing considerable damage when they are in great numbers.

Weevils are a type of beetle.  They are somewhat unique in that they have a long snout with a mouth at the end and antennae attached somewhere in the middle of it.  Rose weevils belong to another subgroup of weevils called leaf rolling weevils.  Many of the species in this group will lay eggs in a rolled-up leaf where the young can grow with some degree of protection.  The rose weevil does not follow in that trend though; they chew a small hole in a rosehip, remove the seeds, and lay their eggs inside.  After hatching the young enjoy the safety of the seed pod and feed on the juices supplied by the rose.

I have a macro system that I use which has worked well for me.  I use a 24 megapixel APS-C sensor camera set on manual exposure mode.  There is a 36 mm automatic extension tube then a 105 mm macro lens attached to the camera.  I use a dedicated macro lighting system that is wirelessly connected to the camera attached on the end of the lens.  Altogether it is a rather imposing package, but it generally produces excellent results.  This particular photo was taken using an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second, at an aperture of f/45.

There are a myriad of techniques and equipment you can use to achieve satisfactory macro images.  If you are interested, I have written a book on the subject.  For more information on that, click here.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen