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Project Noah Nature School
Was in genus Lachnodius but transferred to Lobimago by Hardy et al in 2011.
Nice female!
That'd be great. If it's not a red gum, it might be an undescribed species of Apiomorpha!
Pulvinaria of some sort.
The "white scales" are the pupal cases of males, probably of the same species as the big female.
The venation of the leaf looks wrong for Corymbia - it should have finely spaced parallel veins.
Great find Leuba. Any chance the host was a red gum of some sort?
ID to genus is correct - probably Tanyscelis maculata.
In photo 3, they are the small bumps to the lower left, on the main part of the gall - reddish looking.
Males (and females) of gall-inducing scale insects need to insert their mouthparts (stylets) into live plant tissue in order to deliver the signals that cause the plant to grow a gall. In most Apiomorpha females and males, the plant tissue needs to be new growth, i.e., young shoots. But galls of females seem to be OK too. You can sometimes see galls of females and males on those of other females - in one of Pam's other photos (https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/95...) you can see a small female gall and some young male galls on the gall of an adult female. In some species of Apiomorpha though, like A. munita and A. pharetrata, galls of males are only induced on those of females - they do not induce their own galls on young shoots.
Not necessarily - just needs to be a green gall at the time the young male starts to induce its gall.
