Cynipidae inquiline

Moved

… Adam Kranz, 4 January, 2024 - 11:28pm

Thanks Adam.

Can you/will you provide a link (I hope) to an explanation of gall wasp inquilines associated with galls of the gall wasp maker? I can't get my head around it. Thank you.

… MJ Hatfield, 5 January, 2024 - 9:07am

Clarification

Are you asking what it means to be an inquiline or how we tell them apart morphologically?

… Adam Kranz, 5 January, 2024 - 11:30am

I think I was asking

how common is it, in general, but referencing this specific case, for an inquiline to be in the same family as the original insect. For instance is there a tephritid inquiline in with the Goldenrod gall fly? Maybe there are plenty of instances of this and I am unaware.
Thank you.

… MJ Hatfield, 5 January, 2024 - 1:08pm

Other taxa

I'm not aware of any tephritid inquilines but there may be some. It's not uncommon for inquilinism to evolve in galling lineages because they're already in the right places and involves a loss of capacity rather than much gain. I know it independently evolved in several cynipoid lineages and in several Cecidomyiine lineages. Incidentally, some cynipid inquilines have apparently hopped over to inquilinize cecidomyiine galls on oak.

… Adam Kranz, 5 January, 2024 - 1:45pm

We know so little.

Which is certainly one of the draws of insects.
Thank you, this helped.

… MJ Hatfield, 5 January, 2024 - 2:24pm

Moved

Moved from Synerginae.

… Charley Eiseman, 10 February, 2012 - 1:24pm

Moved

Moved from Neuroterus saltarius.

Zhiwei Liu says: "This is an inquiline. Do you know the galls can “jump” if you detach them from the leaf when they are close to mature?"

… Charley Eiseman, 10 February, 2012 - 11:20am

Jumping Oak Galls

At the time of the post and your response, I don't think I knew about the jumping but I did find out later.
JumpingOakGalls

… MJ Hatfield, 21 February, 2018 - 2:17pm

Great

video capture!

… Joyce Gross, 21 February, 2018 - 5:41pm

Nice!

I've never found these at the right time--only parasitized ones.

… Charley Eiseman, 21 February, 2018 - 5:29pm

Inquilines?

That is so cool! Thanks very much.

… MJ Hatfield, 10 February, 2012 - 12:09pm

I would bet...

that you will only find the true gallmaker in the galls that have detached from the leaf. Galls that stay attached are abnormal, suggesting a parasitoid/inquiline. Which isn't to say that the detached galls might not also be parasitized. I've collected these galls a few times but haven't had anything emerge so far.

… Charley Eiseman, 10 February, 2012 - 12:19pm

One year,

for some reason, I was lying in the yard in the fall and started picking up various detached galls (under a bur oak) in the dirt/grass. I separated them by looks, bagged them, had high hopes and nothing emerged.

… MJ Hatfield, 10 February, 2012 - 1:03pm