Vine weevils are a recognisable garden visitor. You might consider them a pest for the damage they can do to plants.
But for commercial growers, they are a very real problem.
The ornamental plant industry is worth about £800m a year in the UK and weevils do £20m of damage a year.
If a grower sends plants to a seller who discovers any weevils or telltale signs of leaf damage, then the whole batch will be returned.
There's a few reasons why vine weevils can be such a problem.
They're all female and reproduce without sex.
That means you can go from just one to an infestation in a short period of time.
The adults are nocturnal, so hard to spot, and the larvae are even more secretive, hiding in the soil and demolishing the roots.
