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Fergusonina sp?
Situated on the main vein of a eucalyptus leaf these galls look like tiny citrus fruit. The galls have been produced by a small fly which forces the plant to build a home by chemical irritation. Sometimes one type of insect may have started the gall process and a second type may invade and develop the gall for its own purpose.
Eucalyptus leaves.
Cynipidae in Australia... ..." In the northern hemisphere, cynipids are virtually all host plant specific, and can be identified by the unique morphology of their galls. Those associated with oaks (Quercus) have complex sexual and asexual generations. Cynipids that are gall inquilines (tribe Synergini) usually kill the primary host insect at an early stage and subsequently cause modification of the shape of the gall.
The few native Australian species, several of which are undescribed, are possibly inquilines in the galls of various chalcidoids. Across Australasia, many species from various families of Chalcidoidea (eg. Eulophidae, Pteromalidae) occupy the gall-inhabiting niche otherwise filled by Cynipidae in the Holarctic region....... ...... This family is very diverse in the northern hemisphere as indicated by the 600+ species that occur in North America. However, the phytophagous Cynipidae are poorly represented in Australia and New Zealand, being known from only six and two described species, respectively, of which at least two are introduced. ".. - CSIRO
Fergusonina http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/forestry/forest...
5 Comments
I like your link and my guess seems a bit pemature. You are not off track but seem to have found some more local data. I see that brisbaneinsects has some data too.
Martin please yell out if I'm going off track ... thanks.... nice bunch of galls on flickr btw.
Hi martin - I don't think it's likely to be Cynipidae as they are just not around much in Aus. You're definitely right that this could cause a big headache though. Nice to think JohnLS might drop in now and then after reading his bio :-) . At the moment I have been reading about Eulophidae and Pteromalidae but they hardly scratch the surface (so to speak). Wow...!! Are you looking at this website http://anic.ento.csiro.au/insectfamilies... it seems useful.
I suspect a gall wasp. (Cynipid wasps)
They belong in the family cynipidae.
I fear that there's much to be learned here.
Fantastic! I wonder if mine is the same, also found on the vein of young Eucalypt leaves. Love this spotting Argy :) http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/120...