awenninger's Favorites

Host: Picea mariana

Reared specimen: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/197495082

Galls found at the base of last year's growth (lateral and terminal twigs). Collected by pulling twigs away from the scales at their base.

Gall phenology not reliable as host was collected with a holiday tree permit and stored indoors for about a month.

Similar to this gall https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/animalia/arthropoda/insecta/diptera/nematocera/cecidomyiidae/cecidomyiinae/lasiopteridi/lasiopteridi-unplaced/piceacecis/piceacecis-abietiperda/

Gall flower bud on bottom.

An adult fly was in a gall that I opened. Maybe that's the midge? Or unrelated to gall? Tiny. First time for me to see. See https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/179099416

Fireweed bud gall. See observations https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174819201 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/175302199

@tepary comments "A normal bud is usually longer than it is wide. The gall is wider than it is long." Potentially genus Dasineura. @awenninger is investigating whether a further ID is possible by DNA.

The white/sometimes pinkish larvae are visible in some of the cropped images, inside the bud gall.

A note to anyone editing data quality or annotations: This specimen was alive when collected, and the data given reflect the time and place when the insect was observed alive.

Please adhere to iNat’s guidelines and do not mark this observation as “captive” or “dead”, as this causes problems for researchers attempting to find species records.

iNat's definition of a "wild" observation explicitly includes "museum/herbarium specimens that are appropriately marked with date and location of original collection". The data given are the date and location of original capture, and as such, this observation should not be marked as captive. See #5 of the observation FAQ on the forum: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#captive

The "dead" annotation should only be used if the organism was dead at the time of the observation. The question of insect specimen annotations has been had on the forums, and specimens which are dead in the photo but were alive at the time of capture should be annotated as "alive", not "dead". See here for discussion:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/annotate-dead-or-alive/17537

Thanks!

Observed on a strawberry flower in a small garden. Flower is 1” across. Dominant vegetation type in neighborhood is old growth white spruce and paper birch. In the hills north of Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.