Ram's horn gall wasp
The ram's horn gall wasp is a tiny wasp that makes oak trees grow strange shapes. Its eggs make the tree grow a long, curved lump called a gall, which looks like the horn of a ram. The baby wasp lives safely inside it.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The gall is green at first. Later it hardens and turns brown.
It lays its eggs on several kinds of oak trees.
It used to live mostly in eastern Europe but has spread west. In England it was first found in 1997.
Sometimes other tiny insects move into its gall, and then the gall can grow into odd shapes.
Most asked questions about Ram's horn gall wasp
?What is a gall?
A gall is a lump that a plant grows around a little insect egg or larva. For this wasp, the gall grows on oak trees and is shaped like a ram's horn.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Andricus aries
- Named by
- Giraud, 1859
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Cynipidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Cynipidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Andricus aries (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 Andy Mabbett. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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