But the snout beetle isn't the only foreign bug that is being drafted to gobble up a pest.

Curculionidae is the family of the "true" weevils (or "snout beetles").

Curculionoidea ( 8 families primarily consisting of weevils and also including snout beetles)

Common names include the melaleuca leaf weevil and the melaleuca snout beetle.

It is commonly known as the eucalyptus snout beetle, the eucalyptus weevil or the gum tree weevil.

In South Africa, Anaphes nitens was introduced very successfully to control the eucalyptus snout beetle (Gonipterus scutellatus).

Control of the Eucalyptus snout beetle followed in 1925 with the introduction of the egg parasite Anaphes nitens, a wasp native to Australia.

Odontocorynus salebrosus (also known as Snout Beetle) is a species of weevils in the Curculionidae family which is endemic to the United States.

The largest taxonomic family is commonly thought to be the Curculionidae (the weevils or snout beetles), but recently the Staphylinidae (the rove beetles) have claimed this title.

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, is a species of snout beetle also known as the Asian palm weevil or sago palm weevil.

The snout beetle, also known as the melaleuca weevil, is one of the most tested bugs in history, so it probably won't wind up eating mahogany or palms instead of melaleuca.

Disasters have occurred, too, when introduced species have become pests themselves here and in other parts of the country, but Federal officials say the thorough testing on the snout beetle precludes that type of problem.

Air-dried and preserved behind glass display cases, blister beetles, whirligig beetles and snout beetles are among the specimens that scientists hope will show the public that the bugs are interesting and attractive.

Mr. Center, who estimated the cost of the melaleuca project at $400,000 a year, said his team was looking at reinforcing the snout beetle with six other insects from Australia that feed on other parts of the melaleuca.

At the base of the beetle family tree, Dr. Farrell found a number of ancient lineages of leaf beetles, snout beetles and long-horned beetles that still eat the primitive gymnosperms that they ate 200 million years ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

The snout beetle's mission is deemed so crucial in Florida that a Congressman, Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr., a Fort Lauderdale Republican, showed up at a ceremony last Saturday near Everglades Holiday Park to set the first 300 bugs free.