NEMONYCHIDAE

Kuschel, Guillermo, 2008, Curculionoidea (weevils) of New Caledonia and Vanuatu: Basal families and some Curculionidae, Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 197, pp. 99-250 : 107

Family NEMONYCHIDAE

Nemonychidae is the second smallest of the seven weevil families of the world but not the smallest in the area of this faunal study. It occurs in the Palearctic, Nearctic, Neotropical and Australian regions, in this last region with known species from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia.

The species of the family thus far known from the Australian biogeographical region are associated with Araucaria and Agathis of the conifer family Araucariaceae in Australia, New Guinea and New Caledonia, and with Phyllocladaceae and Podocarpaceae in New Zealand and southern South Amertica. Adults feed on pollen of the hostplants and larvae live in or on the male strobili, which they abandon after reaching maturity, to drop to the ground for pupation in the soil.

The species associated with Araucaria and Agathis are seldom collected in the field because of their inaccessibility high up on trees. To obtain them in numbers it is necessary to gather pollen-shedding strobili (male cones) from branches or freshly fallen cones from the ground to rear larvae through.

Three species are known from New Caledonia, two beaten and reared from Araucaria biramulata (and/or A. laubenfelsii ?), the other bred from fresh strobili picked off from A. columnaris . More species are surely to turn up in New Caledonia once more samples of male cones not only of Araucariaceae but also of Podocarpaceae are taken. As a matter of fact, a truly spectacular new genus and species has recently been collected on Col d’Amieu, but was received too late to be included here.The three known species are of the genus Notomacer , which occurs in Australia also.