Nettle pouch gall midge
The nettle pouch gall midge is a tiny fly that you almost never see. What you can see is its little home: a shiny, bumpy pouch on a stinging nettle leaf. The midge makes the nettle grow this pouch, and its babies live safely inside.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The pouches are 3 to 8 millimetres big and can be purple or pale green.
Each pouch has a narrow slit for a door, usually on the underside.
Often many pouches grow side by side, and sometimes they grow into each other.
When the babies are big enough, they leave the pouch and go into the soil to change into grown-ups.
Sometimes other midge babies sneak into the pouch too. Some are just guests, and some hunt the babies that live there.
Most asked questions about Nettle pouch gall midge
?What is the bump on my nettle leaf?
It may be a nettle pouch gall. A tiny midge makes the nettle grow it, and midge babies live inside.
?Is the nettle pouch gall midge dangerous?
No. It is a tiny fly that does not bite or sting.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dasineura urticae
- Group
- Flies and mosquitoes
- Family
- Cecidomyiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Diptera > Cecidomyiidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Dasineura urticae (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 Rosser1954 Roger Griffith. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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