Thank you! After reading your tentative ID of Dolerus as the Genus, I read other websites related to this Genus and I'm convinced that this sawfly is of the species Dolerus nitens. Since this is apparently one of the first bugs to fly in the spring, it makes sense that it was still crawling around the ground here in Newfoundland. We still have snow melting and the bugs are just now starting to appear for spring. My guess is that this must be a youngster that wasn't quite ready to fly yet.

With some 70 species in Dolerus in America North of Mexico, it might be hard to pin this to species unless you find a list of Newfoundland sawflies, which would undoubtedly narrow the choices to a few.

As for not flying, there could be a variety of reasons, but certainly many species of insect are unable to fly when the weather is cold. Many moths, for example, have to go through a "shivering routine" to help warm themselves up before flying on a cool day.

Nice find! Keep the Newfoundland insect images coming.

--Stephen

Stephen Cresswell
Buckhannon, WV
www.stephencresswell.com

I went to visit a retired provincial entomologist today. He (Kevin Pardy) used to be curator of the Newfoundland government's provincial insect collection. He still has a personal collection of many, many insects and he showed me some of his Dolerus specimens. He confirmed that this is definitely Genus Dolerus. He also confirmed that the species Dolerus nitens is in Newfoundland. While he couldn't make a 100% identification of this specimen as that exact species from the photos alone, he thought there was a very good chance that it is Dolerus nitens.

Thanks for your interest in our Newfoundland bugs. That makes me want to take more bug photos, even though my wife and sister want me to switch to flowers! lol