A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Cecidomyiidae
Each about 4mm diameter these galls were clustered in on a few of the outer leaves of a very young acacia. Like tiny apples they even had the apple-like indentation with bulging lobes at their outer ends, some of which seemed to show a small opening.
The acacia was growing from very tough, yellow sedimentary rocks on a tiny island in the middle of a lake in a state nature reserve. Very poorly nourished soils.
Each gall has one small pale pink larva inside... http://bushcraftoz.com/forums/showthread...)
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/urn:lsid:b...
Abstract from Australian Journal of Entomology, May 15, 2012 - "A new species of gall midge, Austroacacidiplosis botrycephalae Kolesik gen. et sp. n. induces conspicuous spherical, often red coloured, galls on leaves of Acacia deanei (R. T. Baker), Acacia decurrens Willd., Acacia baileyana F. Muell. and Acacia dealbata Link in south-eastern Australia. A new genus is erected to contain the new species. Austroacacidiplosis belongs to the tribe Cecidomyiini and its closest relative is Acacidiplosis Gagné, an African genus containing species that induce galls on leaves and flower buds of acacias in Kenya." - thanks John La Salle
Spotted on Aug 17, 2013
Submitted on Aug 24, 2013
5 Comments
John I am trying to kick myself. I discovered Australia lacked gall Cynipids last year but still fell into a trap. I'll try to correct the other guy in my reference link. Thanks so much for the clues.
Thanks Jemma, Suzanne, Martin.
great spot and link.
Galls are so interesting. And, yes, many of them are so pretty ... ornate forms, surprising color.
Nice pictures. I don't think that we have any actually gall-forming Cynipidae (subfamily Cynipinae) in Australia - except for a couple of introduced species which aren't on Acacia. You need to look for another culprit. Possibly a different wasp or a Cecidomyiidae.
Have a look at this which just came out last year
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11...
Note picture of gall formed by Austroacacidiplosis botrycephalae
Yes I agree about the wasps. We see these galls here too but not so many at once. They look rather attractive.