A Major League Weevil

I once roomed with a friend, a well-known paleontologist, at a professional meeting of the American Society of Zoologists in Denver that happened to be at the time as the World Series.  He was glued to the television in our room for the game and amazed me with his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of baseball statistics:  batting averages, game scores, world series titles, rookie years, and so forth.  Finally, I can now claim to know one piece of trivia that he might not.  Who is the official entomologist of Major League Baseball?  

The answer  is Dr. Robert Anderson of the Canadian Museum of Nature who was given the title during an MLB Radio interview about a new species of weevil that he had named in honor of one of baseball’s all-time greats:  José Bautista.  Put that in your compendium of baseball stats!

Sicoderus bautistai, a species of weevil discovered in the Dominican Republic by Dr. Robert Anderson of the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Dr. Anderson was inspired to name the species, Sicoderus bautistai, by Bautista’s remarkable contributions to Canadian baseball and his famous bat flip.  It was during game five of the 2015 American league division series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers, when Blue Jay outfielder Bautista flipped his bat after hitting a three-run home run off Sam Dyson.  Andrew Keh described it, in the New York Times, as “the most ostentacious bat flip in MLB history.”  It became an internet meme and pop culture craze, with Bautista bat flips carved into Halloween pumpkins, mowed into a corn maze, printed on a Topps baseball card, tattooed on at least one fan, and displayed on tee-shirts and sweaters.  So, why not a species of weevil, too?

The new weevil, like Bautista himself, is from the Dominican Republic.  Discovered at 1,160 meters elevation in Constanza, it is associated with vines on which they feed.  Weevils of Bautista’s Sicoderus are small, under 4 mm in length, black and shiny.  One of eighteen new species of the genus discovered by Anderson in the West Indies, it seems likely that additional species await discovery.  None have yet been seen from Martinique, St. Lucia, Monserrat or Jamaica, making these obvious areas for exploration.  It was also surprising that ten species were discovered in the Dominican Republic alone.

Like most weevils, it is immediately recognizable as such by its elongate rostrum.  Unlike the majority of beetle families, a long snout makes weevils instantly recognizable to just about everyone.  In the world of beetles, it is the equivalent of a catfish.  When Archie Carr wrote a key to the fishes of Alachua County, Florida, he began by saying that any damned fool knows a catfish.   And, so it is with weevils.

That rostrum is fascinating from a morphological perspective because it is formed by greatly elongating the front portion of the head.  The antennae find themselves partway down the rostrum and the mouthparts at its tip.  The length of the rostrum of the new species is not unusual among weevils, but is nonetheless impressive, being about as long as the elytra or hardened forewings.

When it comes to numbers of species, weevils are in the major leagues, too.  The family Curculionidae, the so-called “true weevils,” currently contains about 60,000 species with no end in sight.  That is roughly equal to the number of species of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals — combined.

The new species, like the majority of weevils, is a plant feeder.  Among weevils are species that utilize just about every part of a host plant, from fruits and seeds to roots, stems and leaves.  There are major agricultural pests among weevils, including the boll weevil and rice, maize and granary weevils that are among the most destructive pests of stored grains. 

Among the vast number of weevils are some surprising outliers.  Bark beetles, lack the characteristic rostrum, and feed and breed between the bark and wood of a variety of tree species.  Some attack living trees, while others are associated with trees that are for some reason weakened, dying or dead.  And some, the ambrosia beetles, have a symbiotic relationship with a particular fungus, cultivating gardens of fungi within the tree and spreading fungus spores via structures specialized for that purpose.

There are even stranger weevils.  Like an Australian species that is eusocial like termites and wasps, establishing colonies in the heartwood of eucalyptus trees.  And another that, walking backwards, rolls kangaroo excrement into balls much like scarab dung beetles.  Weevils are one of the most species-rich families in the animal kingdom with thousands of additional species and surprising stories to be found.  It’s when taxonomists with deep specialized knowledge and finely honed skills, like Dr. Anderson, are at bat that major league discoveries are made.

Further Reading

Anderson, Robert (2018) The genus Sicoderus Vanin 1986 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Curculioninae: Erodiscini) in the West Indies.  Zootaxa 4497: 301-345.

Chesterton, Eric (2018) A species of beetles in the Dominican Republic was named after Jose Bautista.  CUT4 by MLB.com. 25 November.

Garner, Beulah (2015) The dark side of weevils.  Blogs from the Natural History Museum, 9 June.