Pea gall wasp
The pea gall wasp is a tiny wasp that makes oak leaves grow little round balls. These balls, called red-pea galls, hang under the leaf and look like small berries. A baby wasp grows inside each one.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The galls start green, then turn yellow, orange and finally red brown.
Ten to fifteen galls can sit on one single leaf.
Each gall is about 5 to 6 millimetres across, like a small pea.
Its next generation, with both males and females, makes different galls on oak buds, called red-wart galls.
When the wasp comes out, a small round hole is left in the gall.
Most asked questions about Pea gall wasp
?What are the little red balls under oak leaves?
They are often red-pea galls. The oak grows them around the egg of a tiny wasp, and the baby wasp lives inside.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cynips divisa
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Red-pea gall (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Rosser1954 Roger Griffith. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
Bug Wiki honey jar For grown-ups: Bug Wiki is free, with no ads and no tracking. A small tip helps keep it online.Leave a tip
European hornet
Northern giant hornet
Bald-faced hornet
Red velvet ant
Eastern cicada killer
Asian hornet
Julia orangetip
Saddled leafhopper
Sandhill carpenter ant
Wood nettle gall midge
Emerald-banded skimmer
Shielded oak bush-cricket