Cynipid Wasp Galls
These pine cone looking galls remind me of the egg cases from the movie Alien. They’re actually the insect gall of the cynipid wasp. A bug guy identified these for me saying “there are several hundred kinds of cynipid wasps that each make their own kind of gall on a particular kind of oak.” So there’s no telling which cynipid wasp these galls belong to. I only wish I had done what he suggested and collected the leaf. I could’ve then held on to them until they hatched and possibly had them identified.Labels: cynipid wasp, insect gall, oak
posted by Jace Stansbury at 4:00 AM
4 Comments:
They look almost like little pinecones, but those little 'caps' on top beg the question of what's going to come crawling out! It would indeed have been interesting to hatch them, but just seeing them in your photo is amazing enough. If you can find the same leaf after they hatch, it would be fascinating to see what they look like post-hatch (little caps removed and hollow inside, or something else?)
There's also a cynipid wasp that causes galls on big sagebrush. I'll be posting a photo later today.
Hi. On which type of oak were these galls found?
I think it was a water oak.
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