Spongy oak apple gall wasp
Amphibolips confluenta
The spongy oak apple gall wasp is a tiny wasp that lives on oak trees. It makes the oak grow a round ball, called a gall, that looks like a little apple. Its young grow up safely inside the spongy ball.
Lives in
Eastern North America, from Ontario and Quebec through much of the eastern United States
What does it eat?
Its young feed inside the gall, on the oak tree's own tissue.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Spongy oak apple gall wasp about 22 km/h (14 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The ball it makes the oak grow is called an oak apple, and it is soft and spongy inside.
2
It uses many kinds of oak, like red oak, scarlet oak and black oak.
3
Gall wasps are so small that most people only ever notice the galls, not the wasps.
you asked
Most asked questions about Spongy oak apple gall wasp
?What is an oak apple?
A round ball on an oak tree that grows around the young of a gall wasp. It is not a real fruit.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Amphibolips confluenta
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Amphibolips confluenta (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 Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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