Oak artichoke gall wasp
The oak artichoke gall wasp is a tiny wasp that makes an oak tree grow a strange little house for its baby. The house is called a gall, and it looks like a small green artichoke or hop cone on an oak twig. The baby grows safe inside it.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The mother lays just one egg inside an oak leaf bud. The bud then grows into the artichoke gall.
A big gall can be about 2 centimetres long, green or reddish brown.
The small hard part with the larva drops out of the gall from August and falls to the ground.
The wasp inside may wait two or three years before it comes out.
Most asked questions about Oak artichoke gall wasp
?What is an oak artichoke gall?
It is a growth on an oak bud that looks like a tiny artichoke. A gall wasp larva lives inside it.
?Do oak galls harm the tree?
No. Even when there are many, they do no real harm to the oak.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Andricus foecundatrix
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Oak hop gall wasp
Where the facts come from
- Andricus foecundatrix (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 Rasbak. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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