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Eucalyptus nail galls

Terobiella nigriceps

Description:

On a young eucalyptus (E.microcarpa?) some whole branches seemed covered in these galls like small fingers. Average length about 30mm.

Habitat:

Suburban eucalyptus roadside.

Notes:

According to Dr Ken Walker at Victoria Museum, they are caused by a genus of mites... Eriophyes Taxonomy: Animalia: Arthropoda: Arachnida: Trombidiformes: Eriophyidae: Eriophyes
UPDATE Oct. 1 2013 Some of these have been dissected by martinl and have revealed a single larva that looks like dipteran or hymenopteran ie. maggot
Although Ken has said mites I am still going for midges as most likely..
UPDATE Mar. 17 2015 Now it's a type of Chalcid wasp - Terobiella nigriceps

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9 Comments

murrayana01
murrayana01 10 years ago

Thanks for the info. Similar galls have recently been found at Barnawartha in NE Victoria, concentrated on self-sown Eucs (E. albens?).

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 11 years ago

Interesting info BioEu - I presume the Glycaspis is originally from Aus also but will look it up. @shekainah I don't think they would be very good to eat because in theory they are made of wood or bark so you would need to cook it for about 6 days :)

shekainah d. alaban
shekainah d. alaban 11 years ago

Weird but looks yummy.

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 11 years ago

I can imagine why you would think that BioEu. When eucalypts were taken overseas, like with most exporting of life, they never took the dependent or enemy species so things go crazy without their enemies. In Aus eucalypts are home and food to an incredible variety of lifeforms that have evolved together.

Mark Ridgway
Mark Ridgway 11 years ago

Thanks for the comments all. I'm sorry to say I've been remiss on the science martin. Will attempt to rectify this tomorrow if it's not raining. But you can count me out for the counting as I already did it - there were heaps. Hollow? to follow.

LeanneGardner
LeanneGardner 11 years ago

Cool! I've a similar spotting Argy I think. I like yours better :) http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/123...

MartinL
MartinL 11 years ago

Impressive. Are they hollow? The scientific thing to do would be to count them.

Hema  Shah
Hema Shah 11 years ago

The eucalyptus in Australia have more varieties of galls.
Awesome spot. am sure Martin will love this one!!

Mark Ridgway
Spotted by
Mark Ridgway

Upwey, Victoria, Australia

Spotted on Aug 1, 2012
Submitted on Aug 3, 2012

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