Wildlife Viewing - With Your Child - Miniature Ecosystem within an Acorn

drawing of family With Your Child

Miniature Ecosystem Within an Acorn

The plentiful acorn, scattered beneath oak trees in the fall, provides food for turkeys, jays, woodpeckers, bears, deer and many other Florida animals. The tiny nut is also invaded and consumed by a variety of insects. To inspect the miniature ecosystem within an acorn, gather a handful of the nuts and a magnifying glass. Notice that many will have a hole in the shell about the size of a pinhead, or they will feel soft.

An acorn weevil, a beetle that drills into the acorn to feed on the nutmeat or to lay eggs, probably made the small hole. The acorn moth often lays eggs in nuts damaged by weevils. Crack some open and look for the worm-like larvae of the weevil and the moth. Note that a weevil larva has no legs, while a moth larva has three pairs of small legs. Of the nearly 5,000 or so acorns produced yearly by an oak tree, only about 20 survive to become trees!

acorn weevil photograph
Acorn Weevil