Weevils...

[dasNdanger]

This is an extension of the food discussion, I suppose...

Okay - which one was it???

Was it a maggot or a weevil - or a larvae or a beetle - or what??!

A couple of quick links:

http://www.hmssurprise.org/News/Daisya_obriani.html

http://www.hms.org.uk/nelsonsnavymaggot.htm

Any other information we can dig up on these little buggers...?

das

[Fox]

I used to keep some in a tin, but I couln't tell you the biology (let no one question my dedication to authenticity!).

According to the 1761 source I posted in "Gold Age Food" there was more than one variety anyway...

A 1761 document entitled "An appeal to the public...to prevent the Navy of England being supplied with pernicious Provisions" is useful because it lists various food stuffs then common on ships, together with exactly what was wrong with them:

Flour ("devoured by weevils")

Bread ("full of black-headed maggots")

[Rumba Rue]

Weevils are found in flour type subtances. Maggots are found in rotting meat type subtances.

[dasNdanger]

I used to keep some in a tin...

oooooo-kaaaaaay... Bet you get a LOT of free restaurant meals...

I was reading your post in the food thread, that's why I started this one. Growing up, we used to get 'weevils' in our pasta products, but they were these tiny, thin critters that one could hardly see...perhaps a red flour beetle (as seen HERE )

THAT'S what we always referred to as a 'weevil', though it surely isn't. When I first learned of biscuit weevils, that's what I pictured. Guess I was wrong! But in movies, they always show the maggoty-looking thing. I guess those 'black-headed maggots' as described in the bread, and perhaps on that second link in my first post...

das

[Duchess]

We used to get some in our rice that looked almost like the rice, except they moved. And the ones in the flour were actually pretty large, about a cm. In my experience maggots always look wet to me, but weevils look slightly scaled and not so wet.

[Jib]

Foxe: English food must be that bad for you to keep a tin of larva.

[Fox]

My mother had a tin of flour that was never opened for years. When it finaly was it was infested. I kept the weevils and used them at living histories to show people what they were.

[blackjohn]

mmmm... crunchy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_weevil

[dasNdanger]

My mother had a tin of flour that was never opened for years. When it finaly was it was infested. I kept the weevils and used them at living histories to show people what they were.

Hey, Foxe - show me your weevils, and I'll show you mine...

Seriously, of all the pictures presented here - what did your tinned pets looks like? The maggoty kind, or the beetle kind...or wot??

das

[blackjohn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weevil

"Some other beetles are wrongly called "weevils", like the biscuit weevils (Stegobium paniceum) (Anobiidae) that were previously known for eating the biscuits on board ships."

http://www.bioimages.org.uk/HTML/R150908.HTM

Life cycle info...

http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/urban/stored...tore_beetle.htm