Monthly Archives: April 2011

Blueberry Gall Wasps, Part 3

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

Yesterday, after still more wasps had emerged from my three blueberry galls, I decided to take them outside and try to get some shots of them in a natural habitat rather than on the usual piece of white paper.  After … Continue reading →

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Oak Flake Galls

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

Last week while I was documenting a vernal pool for a client, I spotted a swamp white oak leaf that was covered with fuzzy brown galls, about 4 mm in diameter, on the underside.  I stuffed the leaf in a … Continue reading →

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Blueberry Gall Wasps, Part 2

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

A little over a week ago, I showed a photo of one of two eurytomid parasitoids that had emerged from some blueberry stem galls I collected in December.  More little wasps have continued to trickle out of the two galls, … Continue reading →

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Stalking Small Game

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

This morning I was taking pictures of a jumping spider in my yard, and when I paused to review the shots on my camera’s LCD (a necessary ritual when using my macro setup, since many of the pictures are over- … Continue reading →

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Nutty Mysteries

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

Despite the way things might look, I’m in no way partial to invertebrates–there just happen to be more of them than anything else out there, so I’ve been giving them their due.  But today I’m deviating from the bug theme … Continue reading →

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Waxy Whiteflies

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

In the summer of 2008 I was working as a field botanist for the UMass Landscape Ecology Lab, identifying all the plants in wetland plots throughout Massachusetts.  I kept coming across distinctive little waxy tufts on the undersides of arrowwood … Continue reading →

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Blueberry Gall Wasps

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

Galls on blueberry twigs are a common sight in eastern North America.  They are caused by Hemadas nubilipennis, a tiny wasp in the family Pteromalidae.  Most members of this family, like the ones that emerged from my goldenrod rosette galls, are … Continue reading →

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Goldenrod Rosette Galls

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

There are a number of similar galls on goldenrod that I’m not sure how to tell apart.  They look like dense bunches of leaves at the top of the stem, and sometimes they are so abundant that they might seem … Continue reading →

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Balloon-faced Flies

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

On March 18 during my lunch break I collected an aspen twig with some distinctive swellings.  I knew they were caused by Hexomyza schineri, a fly in a family (Agromyzidae) that is mostly composed of leafminers, and was hoping to … Continue reading →

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New Zealand Zigzag

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Charley Eiseman

Since I started paying attention to invertebrate tracks and signs, I have become especially interested in leaf mines.  A leaf mine is the trail left by an insect larva–it could be a moth, fly, beetle, or sawfly–feeding between the epidermal … Continue reading →

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