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The Pine Weevil right is a harmful pest in UK forests, the eggs are laid in the stumps of felled conifers from which the larvae then feed, and the adult beetles will feed on the bark of the replacement young conifer plants
A Weevil beetle attacking a hawk moth caterpillar
When I was a teenager I would breed Hawk moths and sell them to butterfly farms and other collectors, but I would always release many back into the wild, on one accassion I was releasing some hawk moth caterpillars onto a large poplar tree, I noticed a large weevil beetle hanging upside down from its two back legs. from the bottom branch low to the ground. It had it two front legs out straight, and looked very strange, I guessed it was waiting for something, so I thought it would be a good idea to place one of my hawk moth caterpillars in front of the beetle, as the caterpillar was so much larger I thought I could rescue it if anything happened. Well I placed the caterpillar close to the beetle, its legs wrapped around the caterpillars body and sunk in deep and then the beetle ran it long snout down the caterpillars body, the caterpillar split open and turned almost inside out, to my horror this all happened in a second.
The beetle was in a ideal position to wait for a caterpillar like a Hawk moth climbing down the branch to pupate into the ground.
I did not keep the weevil beetle for identification but I have always thought it to be this species or something very similar.
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