The Chestnut weevil, a garden astronaut.
Carefully perched on the pristine petals of a stitchwort, this Chestnut weevil (Curculio elephas) looks like a creature straight out of a science fiction story with its spectacular rostrum.
This small beetle, an icon of the French countryside, possesses a unique tool: a rigid, extremely thin snout that allows it to bore into plant tissues. In the female, this rostrum is a feat of natural engineering used to pierce the still-soft shells of chestnut to deposit an egg.