Arizona Oak Galls, Part 2

Gall #2 is a fancy cup-shaped one found on the undersides of leaves, sometimes in clusters.

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A month after I collected them, the galls (kept in a tightly sealed vial) had become covered with mold, but a single wasp chewed its way out of one of them.  It was dusty and acting a little drunk when I found it.

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IMG_9489 To my eye, the host plant looks to be the same oak on which I found gall #1.  This time I remembered to get a shot of the buds as well as the leaves.

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About Charley Eiseman

I am a freelance naturalist, endlessly fascinated by the interconnections of all the living and nonliving things around me. I am the lead author of Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates (Stackpole Books, 2010), and continue to collect photographs and information on this subject. These days I am especially drawn to galls, leaf mines, and other plant-insect interactions.
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2 Responses to Arizona Oak Galls, Part 2

  1. Josh C'deBaca says:

    Very cool! I’m years late here and you may have already figured this out but these are galls of a seldom observed species, Dros sessile: https://www.gallformers.org/gall/2249 The adult isn’t super similar to the type specimen pics from the USNM but it may be in the range of variation for the species, and that specimen is very old so the color may be different than if it were fresh.

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