Red palm weevil: what the agencies record

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It covers the red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus), a pest of palms. The Defra factsheet calls it a regulated quarantine pest in Great Britain, so the legal status below is stated as that source puts it and may have changed. Each section names its source and the day it was read, October 8, 2026, and gives the date the source carries. The parent page, insect pests of trees, compares it with the other pests on the list.

Names

The Defra Plant Pest Factsheet, written by Fera Science and Defra (June 2024, version 3), uses red palm weevil and the scientific name Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, and places it in the beetle family Curculionidae. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, called APHIS, publishes a CAPS datasheet (version 14, July 21, 2023) that adds the common names Asiatic palm weevil, coconut weevil and red stripe weevil. The datasheet says taxonomy has changed several times and that research suggests the name may cover a species complex of two or more cryptic species. It names a close relative, Rhynchophorus vulneratus, which it says was detected and eradicated in Laguna Beach, California, in 2010, and says APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine handles both in the same way for detection. The two NAPPO pest reports, from the North American Plant Protection Organization, name the pest Rhynchophorus ferrugineus.

Hosts

Defra says the weevil feeds mainly on palms and has occasionally been found on sugar cane. It is described as the most important pest of date palm in the world and a serious pest of coconut, and Defra names oil palm, sago palm, Canary Island date palm, royal palm and Chusan palm among the hosts. The APHIS datasheet lists coconut, Canary Island date palm and date palm as preferred hosts, and names others including cabbage palm, windmill palm, fountain palm and Washingtonia palms as hosts with a known United States distribution. The 2015 NAPPO report names coconut, date, oil and sago palms and says the host range can also include plants in the grass and agave families, with palms the primary host.

What the sources say to look for

Defra says the weevil is very difficult to detect early and is usually found only after the palm has been badly damaged. It lists early symptoms as egg-laying notches, cocoons pushed into the base of the palm, an off-centre growing crown, holes at the base of cut palms, wilting that resembles a lack of water, and tunnelling in the trunk. It says larvae and adults can hollow out a palm without outward signs until damage is severe. The APHIS datasheet describes a deformed growing point with an umbrella-like look, clipped fronds, holes in the crown or trunk, frass and cocoons at the base of removed fronds, and brown liquid or a fermented smell at trunk holes. It says infested palms can die in 4 to 6 months and that the damage can resemble that of Fusarium fungi or rodents, so it can be hard to diagnose until the weevil is found inside the palm. Defra describes adults as reddish brown and about 35 millimetres long, and larvae as legless, creamy white and up to 50 millimetres. The APHIS datasheet warns of look-alikes: a large black weevil established in San Diego County, California, and a large native weevil of the southeastern United States that resembles it, and says all large weevils found in palms should be submitted to APHIS experts. Defra lists pheromone traps, acoustic detection and infrared systems as detection methods.

Life cycle as the sources state it

Defra says each female lays 200 to 300 eggs in holes or cavities in the host, eggs hatch in two to five days, the larval stage runs 36 to 78 days and adults emerge 2 to 3 weeks after pupation, with a life cycle of about 4 months in the native range under optimal conditions. The APHIS datasheet gives an average of 250 eggs, a larval stage of around two months, and a generation time that varies with temperature, with one or two generations a year in Spanish palms. The 2010 NAPPO report gives a life cycle of 45 to 139 days depending on temperature and says adults are active by day and can fly more than 900 metres to find hosts. The datasheet says adults are attracted to damaged or dying palms, and that eggs may be laid in wounds such as pruning damage.

Where it is reported

Defra says the weevil is native to southern Asia and Melanesia and began spreading west in the 1980s, reaching Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates around 1985 and Spain in 1994, and that it has spread widely in the Mediterranean. It lists the weevil as absent from Great Britain and present in many countries across Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, the Caribbean and Oceania. It records an outbreak in Brittany, France, in 2013 in plants imported from Spain, further French findings in 2016, and in October 2016 a large number of larvae in a palm in Essex that had been imported from the Netherlands, which was destroyed. It also lists interceptions in 2014 with a gourd from Sri Lanka and with fresh Brassica oleracea produce (the cabbage species) from Spain in 2020, 2022 and 2024.

The NAPPO report posted November 15, 2010 says the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed the first United States detection on October 15, 2010: a dead weevil in a Canary Island palm stump in Laguna Beach, Orange County, California, reported by a local arborist. A live adult was found on October 26 in another palm about 100 metres away. The NAPPO report posted January 23, 2015 says APHIS declared eradication from the Laguna Beach area effective January 18, 2015, after a three-year period without detections as the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization standard requires, with the last confirmed detection on January 18, 2012. The APHIS datasheet notes that France is listed as under official control and gives the Caribbean records as Aruba, Curacao and Saint Maarten.

Regulated status and reporting

Defra says the weevil is a regulated quarantine pest in Great Britain. It says that in 2019 the European Union classified it as a Regulated Non-Quarantine Pest, meaning limits on moving certain planting material from EU countries where it is present, and that parts of the EU have protected zone status. The APHIS datasheet says it is on the EPPO A2 list of pests recommended for regulation and is a harmful organism in the EU and 21 other countries, and that importing palms large enough to harbour the pest into the United States is prohibited. The 2010 NAPPO report called it transient, actionable and under surveillance in the United States, and the 2015 report called it eradicated from California and the United States.

Defra names these authorities for a suspected outbreak of red palm weevil or any other non-native plant pest: the Animal and Plant Health Agency Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate for England and Wales, the Scottish Government's Horticulture and Marketing Unit for Scotland, and the plant health inspection branch of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland. For the route in each country see the guides on reporting a pest in the United Kingdom and the United States. No separate regulated-status page is held on this site for this weevil.

Management as the sources list it

Defra says garden centres and nurseries are asked to be aware of the risk when buying palms, to source from pest-free areas where possible, and that importers should check their stock complies with current measures and watch for signs of infestation. The APHIS datasheet names the two likely routes into the United States as importing live infested palms and smuggling, and says traps loaded with an aggregation pheromone and fermenting bait are used for monitoring, detection and population-level control. The 2015 NAPPO report says APHIS worked with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Orange County, University of California Cooperative Extension, homeowners and arborists to remove several damaged palms and extend surveys. This page gives no product names, rates or timings. For who may apply pesticides, see pesticide licences.