. Cotton or weevils. Boll weevil; Cotton. COTTON OR WEEVILS 5 white, footless grub appears. This grub looks very much like a small worm and all it can do is eat and grow. Owing to the care taken by the mother weevil in placing the egg within the bud, the little grub finds itself actually touching the very kind of tender, juicy food that it needs. After eating away for from 7 to 12 days, the grub, or larva as the scientist calls it, becomes full grown (fig. 3, A) and changes into another stage called the pupa (fig. 3, B). This time in the life of the weevil is like the well-known chrysalis stag
. Cotton or weevils. Boll weevil; Cotton. COTTON OR WEEVILS 5 white, footless grub appears. This grub looks very much like a small worm and all it can do is eat and grow. Owing to the care taken by the mother weevil in placing the egg within the bud, the little grub finds itself actually touching the very kind of tender, juicy food that it needs. After eating away for from 7 to 12 days, the grub, or larva as the scientist calls it, becomes full grown (fig. 3, A) and changes into another stage called the pupa (fig. 3, B). This time in the life of the weevil is like the well-known chrysalis stage of the butterfly. In the meantime all the inside part of the flower bud has been eaten. Needless to say, it will never bloom for it is entirely dead. Frequently these eaten flower buds drop off the plant and fall to the ground. Even before the flower buds drop they look very dif- ferent from healthy buds. They become whitish and the three outer. Fig. 3.—The pearly white egg which the mother weevil puts into a tiny hole in the flower bud hatches into a grub. This grub eats and grows for from 7 to 12 days. It then changes to a pupa. From three to five days later the little creature sheds its skin. It has now become a full-grown or " adult " weevil, like its mother. By using its tiny jaws it soon cuts a hole in the flower bud and crawls out. The weevil grub is shown at A, the pupa at B, and the adult weevil, feeding on a cotton boll, at C. All are natural size leaves or bracts open out or flare. In a healthy bud these bracts are pressed together. Figure 4 shows this difference between healthy buds and a flared bud. After the pupal stage of the weevil has lasted 'from three to five days another change takes place; the little creature sheds its skin and wriggles clear of it in the exact form of the parent weevil that laid the egg. The egg has now become a full-grown or adult weevil, and it is time to leave its childhood home. It is still inside the walls of the flower
Size: 1976px × 1264px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookpublisherwashingtondcusdept
