How flightless beetles wander the Pacific

Shipping for weevils PACHYRHYNCHUS WEEVILS are found on most islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean. If these weevils could fly, that would not be surprising. But they cannot. Why they are so widespread is therefore a mystery. But it is one that Wen-San Huang of the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan thinks he has solved. One theory, which dates back to 1923, is that the beetles drift from place to place, buoyed up by a tiny air cavity each has beneath its outer shell, which allows the i...