Description: Adults are reddish-brown to black snout beetles, about 3 mm long, with a long curved beak and a spur on the inside of each front leg. The body is covered with yellowish to gray scales which give the beetle a brassy luster. Larvae are grayish-white with a brown head, cylindrical, somewhat curved and about 6 mm long.

Hosts: Various peppers, eggplant, nightshade, other solanaceous plants

Damage: Adults feed externally on foliage, blossom buds and tender pods. Larvae feed inside buds and pods, usually at the seed core but sometimes tunneling in the walls of pods. Infested buds, blossoms and young pods drop from the plants. Infested peppers are black inside and filled with frass.

Life Cycle: Pepper weevils spend the winter on live pepper or nightshade in warm areas. They spread each spring by flying or hitchhiking on pepper plants, picking sacks or fruit. Females usually are feeding and laying eggs by June. Each female lays about 200 eggs in buds and fruit over a 30 day period. Eggs hatch in three to five days. Larvae feed in pods and fruit for eight to 10 days then pupate. Four to six days later, new beetles emerge. A two to three week life cycle is typical in summer. Five to eight generations are produced each year.

Control: Pepper weevils are commonly controlled with a broad spectrum insecticide when adults or damage are found.

Pepper weevil larva Photo by: Dr. David Riley
UGA Research Entomologist

Pepper weevil pupa
Photo by: Dr. David Riley
UGA Research Entomologist

Pepper weevil adult
Photo by: Dr. David Riley
UGA Research Entomologist