Red-headed pine sawfly
The red-headed pine sawfly is a small cousin of the wasps that lives in pine woods. The female has a reddish brown head and a black body, while the male is all black. Its larvae look like caterpillars and love to eat pine needles.
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Fun facts
The mother cuts tiny slits in pine needles and tucks one egg into each slit.
The larvae live together in groups. When a tree has no needles left, they all march to the next tree.
The males have feathery feelers, while the females have feelers with little teeth like a saw.
The older larvae are yellowish green with rows of black spots and brown heads.
Most asked questions about Red-headed pine sawfly
?What does the red-headed pine sawfly eat?
Its larvae eat pine needles. They like small pine trees best.
?Is it a caterpillar?
Its larva looks like one, but it is the baby of a sawfly, not of a butterfly or moth.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Neodiprion lecontei
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Diprionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Diprionidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Leconte's sawfly
Where the facts come from
- Neodiprion lecontei (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 Judy Gallagher. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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