By Holly Gaze, TWIC
Why weevils matter
Recently, on 1 May 2026 TWIC organised a workshop on weevil ID at the National Museum of Scotland’s (NMS) Collections Centre in Granton, Edinburgh. Weevils are an often overlooked group – unless they’re certain pest species – and like many invertebrate groups they’re drastically under‑recorded. In fact, despite being the UK’s most numerous beetle family with over 600 species endemic to the British Isles, TWIC only holds 2,470 Curculionoidea records in our entire database of over 4.5 million wildlife records.
Expert support and museums collection
Luckily, we had weevil expert Mark Gurney and NMS’s wonderful specimen collection to help us combat this gap in knowledge and recording. Mark is the organiser of the Weevil Recording Scheme, as well as the author of a number of incredible and well‑illustrated identification guides to British weevils – all of which are available completely free to download as PDFs from the UK Beetle Recording website.
Our NMS host, and co‑leader of the group, was Ashleigh Whiffin, the Curator of Entomology at NMS. Ashleigh is responsible for the care, curation and development of the insect collection at the museum. She specialises in British insects, particularly Coleoptera (beetles), and has a specific interest in Silphinae (carrion beetles). As an aside, anyone curious about these wonderful little saprotrophs should keep an eye on our upcoming events page.
Learning the basics of weevil identification
We started our day with a presentation from Mark, beginning with an introduction to the basics of weevil anatomy and progressing into a whirlwind tour of the identifying characteristics of the main groups and most common species. Despite having so much to cover in such a short time, Mark’s explanations and wonderful photos made it easy to keep up and thoroughly demystified this broad and initially intimidating group.
Hands‑on identification with specimens
Part of the reason for the breakneck pace was to enable attendees to spend as much time as possible examining actual specimens. Ashleigh brought out specimen trays from NMS’s extensive collection for us to look at. After an initial session working with labelled specimens organised by family, attendees moved on to practising their identification skills on ‘mystery specimens’ prepared in advance.
These included a few live specimens caught on site, which proved not very cooperative when it came to staying still in their containers for hand‑lens observation. However, the main portion of this part of the day focused on microscope examination of dry specimens. Using Mark’s weevil keys, attendees were given specimens with their species labels hidden and challenged to use their new knowledge to identify the weevils they were examining.
In spite of it being most participants’ first experience focusing on weevils, and with support from both Mark and Ashleigh, most people were able to identify their specimens to species level – a true testament to Mark’s teaching and the quality of the identification resources.
Looking ahead
This workshop was truly a wonderful experience and an excellent learning opportunity. TWIC is very grateful to both Mark and Ashleigh for making it possible, and a huge thanks also to everyone who attended and helped make the day so enjoyable.
For those who were unable to attend, why not try brushing up on weevil identification in your own time using Mark’s freely available ID guides? Weevils – and other wildlife – records can be submitted directly to TWIC on our website or via the iRecord app.
You can find details of upcoming workshops and public events on our Events page.