#gall midge

[ratbugs]

cecidomyiidae moment

how are they allowed to be this tiny

[onenicebugperday]

@karltface submitted: Greetings from Wisconsin! A couple of friends I met recently:

A lovely forest green on this sphinx moth(?) that barely shows up here no matter what filters I apply, but trust me, it was magical.

This little fellow was taking shelter from the rain on my friend's porch, and decided to sit with me for a bit. Very tiny and keen to explore my entire hand, but I managed a couple shots anyway during brief pauses.

Hello, Wisconsin! The first pal is definitely a sphinx! It's a Virginia creeper. They are a beautiful shade of green and I haven't seen many photos that do the color justice. Shockingly good photos of that tiny dude! A gall midge, maybe? Hard to tell when they're so tiny. I love them, though...

[wildfloweroftheday]

31 August 2019

Germander Speedwell - Veronica chamaedrys with galls

I was puzzled by this plant - what was it? I broke open one of the ‘flowerheads’ and inside were two tiny, bright orange maggots. Which made me realise it was some type of gall. I looked it up, and it is caused by a small gall midge called Jaapiella veronicae, which lays it’s eggs in the terminal buds of Speedwell plants, usually Germander Speedwell, resulting in these fuzzy galls.

[fatchance]

Galls on bald cypress twigs (Taxodium distichum), at the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. 

The galls are caused by the aptly named cypress twig gall midge, Taxodiomyia cupressiananassa.

[paleoteacher-blog]

From: Charles Howard Curran , 1934 The families and genera of North American Diptera C.H. Curran

[speciesofleastconcern]

more identifying animals from plants

Every growth, marking, bump, or blemish on a plant was made by something, and surprisingly often the cause can be closely traced to a particular animal. I could see from a distance that these hickory leaves had orangish spots on their underside. On close examination the spots were furry balls! These little growths are galls that have grown around insect eggs, in a weird bit of mostly harmless and stunningly common parasitization. These orange tribbles hide and protect the larvae of the hickory gall midge (Caryomyia sp.). The creature inside is a helpless pinpoint of a maggot that will grow into a fly so small that it would otherwise go completely unnoticed by humans.

[unkn0wnvariable]

Gall Midge by Oliver Andrews Via Flickr: Another spot in the garden from #30DaysWild day 10, a tiny gall midge on a blade of grass.