Phyllobius glaucus

Seeing a largish weevil on nettles I imagined it would prove to be Green Nettle Weevil Phyllobius pomaceus but upon examination it proved to be glaucus.

Phyllobius glaucus showing rostrum and antenna (inlcuding close-up of fourth segment), Pensthorpe (Norfolk, UK), 15th May 2023

This one was swept with the one above, so also in nettles.

second Phyllobius glaucus showing rostrum (2 views), elytral scales and antenna (inlcuding close-up of fourth segment), Pensthorpe (Norfolk, UK), 15th May 2023

I always find Duff's key to subfamilies of Curculionidae difficult when it comes to subfamily Entiminae. You have to determine whether or not the mandible is "either with an external scar (marking the point of attachment of a deciduous process that is lost soon after eclosion), or else clothed with many fine scales and/ or setae on its outer apical face (extremely hard to see)." If is then it's Entiminae, but if not (by this point in the key) it's either Lixinae or Stenopelmini. When I examine weevils the mandibles are nearly always tightly held in and even finding the mandible is hard enough, let alone seeing if there's a scar on it, or "extremely hard to see" fine scales or setae. On both of these two, one mandible was opened out so in theory it should at last be possible to see what Duff is on about here. But with 63x magnification and good lighting I'm afraid I still can't see anything resembling a scar or fine scales or setae. So it seems to me that this is a pretty useless point of difference. Fortunately for most members of the subfamily, it is fairly easy to eliminate either Lixinae (antennae not geniculate) and Stenopelmini (less than 2.5mm long) so one can then deduce that it must be Entiminae. I'm not sure if there are any members of Entiminae that are less than 2.5mm long or lack geniculate antennae - if so these will be trickier.

mandible of 2x Phyllobius glaucus, Pensthorpe (Norfolk, UK), 15th May 2023

It took me quite a while to get used to identifying Phyllobius, and at the time I found this one I identified it as Phyllobius pyri. On reviewing my photos more recently I'm satisfied that the scrobe and rostrum are the wrong shape for this and together with the antenna segment lengths it must be glaucus. It had been beaten from Field Maple.

Phyllobius glaucus, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows (Norfolk, UK), 12th May 2019

This one from even earlier in my beetling days was even more badly misidentified as I had it down as maculicornis. I can't account for that now as it appears to have had elongate scales on the elytra as well as a long rostrum.

Phyllobius glaucus, Frost's Common (Norfolk, UK), 10th May 2017