Red cone gall wasp
Feron kingi
The red cone gall wasp is a tiny wasp that makes oak leaves grow little red cones. Each cone is a snug home where a baby wasp grows. Many red cones can sprout on just one leaf.
Lives in
Western North America, on white oaks such as the valley oak
What does it eat?
Its larvae feed inside the little red cones that grow on oak leaves.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Red cone 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 red cones are only about 5 millimetres tall and can grow on either side of a leaf.
2
The wasps that grow in these cones are all females that lay eggs without any males.
3
The grown-up wasps come out of the tip of the cone in winter.
you asked
Most asked questions about Red cone gall wasp
?What are the red cones on oak leaves?
They are galls, little homes made by the oak where the red cone gall wasp's young grow.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Feron kingi
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Feron kingi (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 ฮฃ. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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