Gall wasps and flies - Diplolepis spinosa

Moved

Moved from Diplolepis.

… Ken Schneider, 9 September, 2009 - 10:18pm

Moved

Moved from Diplolepis.

… Ken Schneider, 16 September, 2008 - 9:09pm

Moved

Moved from Galls.

… Ken Schneider, 16 September, 2008 - 9:08pm

Diplolepis sp.

I agree the rose galls are caused by Diplolepis sp. wasps. I don't know which species might occur in your area. D. spinosa does seem to be one of them, but there are about 37 species listed on the Nearctica site. I believe most if not all Diplolepis induce rose galls. There's a Diplolepis in California that induces rose galls that look like yours but is probably a different species.

As for the adults -- they are cynipids. It would be my guess also that the darker ones with the smaller abdomens are males, but another possibility is an inquiline -- a different cynipid species that develops in the galls but doesn't kill the gall creator. I don't know enough to be sure one way or the other... but my guess is all your wasps are the original gall creators.

It doesn't look as if you have any flies in the container with the galls -- they all look like wasps to me, when the image is enlarged.

By the way, you gotta keep your gall types separate when you're rearing them, so you can be sure what insect came out of which gall!!

Another contributor here contacted Dr. J.D. Shorthouse about his Diplolepis galls. Perhaps Dr. Shorthouse would be willing to answer another Diplolepis question. He lives in your area and is a cynipid expert.

It should be safe to move these three images and your other two rose gall images to the Diplolepis sp. page.

… Joyce Gross, 16 September, 2008 - 8:52pm

Thanks, Joyce!

Moving to genus page for now.

… Ken Schneider, 16 September, 2008 - 9:07pm

Moved

Moved from Gall Wasps.

… Ken Schneider, 2 September, 2008 - 9:56am

Nice images -

just want to confirm that you are confident that both of these wasps emerged from the rose galls. Do you know the species of Rose? Ordinarily, we would unlink the two wasp images since they are different individuals, but it does make some sense to leave these 3 photos together for now... May try moving to Hymenoptera page in the hopes that an expert will see it there...

… Ken Schneider, 31 August, 2008 - 12:36pm

Rose bush ID

Most of the galls in the tupaware are from my mother's Hansa bushes (Hansa Rosa). Hence I am confident that the wasp pictures (based on the sheer numbers) have come from the Hansa galls. I can post a picture of the roses I am talking about if required. Also, I have an old post I made of a gall from the same rose species which I had split open to reveal the larvae in their chambers. This older post may go well with this picture series: http://bugguide.net/node/view/84397/bgimage

I hope this helps :)

Antoine

… Tony H, 1 September, 2008 - 7:53pm

Follow up

The closest ID I can come up with is Diplolepis spinosa. The rose galls I obtained were large and spiny and found mainly on stems that were close to the ground. The best picture to describe what I saw is here: http://members.tripod.com/buggyrose/insects/17hymenops/17cynipid-stemgalls.jpg
Any opinions on this? Thanks.

… Tony H, 1 September, 2008 - 8:38pm

Thanks!

Thanks for all of the additional information, Antoine! Although I think that you are right about the family ID, I'm going to temporarily move these images to the "galls" page in the hopes that Joyce or Charley will see these photos and be able to comment on your species-level ID...

… Ken Schneider, 2 September, 2008 - 9:55am

Should be D.spinosa

D.spinosa is the only one that forms large, golf ball-like stem galls around here.

… Miles Zhang, 9 September, 2009 - 10:09pm