Saucer gall wasp
Feron gigas
The saucer gall wasp is a tiny wasp that lives on oak trees in California. It makes the oak grow little flat lumps on its leaves, called galls. They look like tiny saucers, and a baby wasp lives in the middle of each one.
Lives in
California, on scrub oaks, blue oaks and Engelmann oaks
What does it eat?
The larva feeds inside its gall on the oak leaf.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Saucer 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
It has two kinds of generations. In one, there are only females, and they come out in winter.
2
The galls of the all-female generation are round, 3 to 4 millimetres wide, with raised edges like a saucer.
3
These galls can be red, pink, brown or purple.
4
The other generation makes brown galls shaped like little cones.
you asked
Most asked questions about Saucer gall wasp
?What are the little round discs on oak leaves?
They can be galls of the saucer gall wasp. A tiny larva lives in the bump in the middle.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Feron gigas
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Feron gigas (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 iNaturalist user: bob-dodge. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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