Spotted new galls forming on an oak that has volunteered in a bad location next to a years-old catalpa and the clothesline.
Not just that big bulbous green one, but little "mosquito bite" ones starting up in adjacent branches.
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The #MastoPrompt: March 3, 2025 is:
#gall
#MrWhiskers
A tepid breeze wafted through the open door to the catio. Mr.Whiskers was interested in the outdoors today. It wasn't terribly cold for a change. He was shocked to find the orange cat right up at the screen on the catio. What gall! It was HIS catio! She looked at him curiously, hoping he'd be friendly, but he wasn't thrilled with her boldness. Bah! Girls were so weird. It was too much work to fend her off, so he went back in and sulked.
The demon Ma’alkoush ran a #conservative household. This included obligatory family dinners.
His half-human daughters, Feast and Slaughter, needed the discipline. They argued with each other a lot. He’d never understand the human need for verbal fighting, when the real physical thing would do.
This evening had been quiet. But then, Slaughter helped herself to more meat, and Feast wasn’t happy.
“Slaughter, you’re so selfish!”
“I’m selfish? You have the #gall—”
“Enough!” Ma’alkoush’s deep voice boomed off the walls and the girls fell silent. He hadn’t meant to scare them. Their human side was very sensitive.
“Slaughter, let Feast have the gall. You can have the spleen.”
The #MastoPrompt for Monday 3 March 2025 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.
It's the first #WaspWednesday of 2025! Let's start the new year off with a gall wasp double-shot.
This lovely two-toned lady goes by Disholcaspis quercusmamma, or D.q. mamma for short. Upon becoming an adult in fall, she chews her way out of the gall she's lived in since spring. Being parthenogenic she has no need to mate in order to lay eggs that will be the spring sexual generation.
Sadly not all of her kind will make it to adulthood..see next post
#gall #gallWasp #wasp #insect #hymenoptera
More than just leaves fall in the Fall. I came across these chonky wasp galls on a fallen oak leaf on my walk yesterday. I have to wonder if one of the inspirations for various cursed fruit fairy tales was some hungry person in the autumn biting into a gall thinking it was a peach and being very disappointed.
Gall of Asteromyia carbonifera (Cecidomyiidae) on goldenrod. The gall is made by a fungus, Botryosphaeria dothidea, which creates a hard, internal pocket (stroma) that makes it difficult for parasitoids such as Torymus capite (Chalcidoidea) to find the larvae inside. Female midges collect conidia of this fungal species and store them in special pockets (mycangia) on their ovipositors. #fly #diptera #insects #entomology #macro #fungi #mutualism #gall #galls #GallWeek
Happy gall week! Here is a Mossy Willow Catkin Gall. Amazing to think these are altered catkins. It was quite large!
Continued thread
Update. The galls are nicely dried out now. This winter I'll turn them into ink.
Unfortunately one of the #galls was still occupied. The little wasp perished inside the stack of glass containers. 
Nice fruit. Look almost ripe. I wonder what they taste like. Probably like insects.
It's GALL WEEK!!!
Here's a gall on a wild strawberry caused by a (likely undescribed) gall wasp species in the genus Diastrophus. The gall even started growing roots! Found in the boreal forest of northwestern Ontario, Canada.
Post your gall pics and join the project on iNaturalist. Get your gall on!!
#Cynipidae #gall #galls #GallWasp #iNaturalist #GallWeek2024 #Diastrophus #Ontario #Canada
Tiny, spherical galls on a goldenrod caused by the fly species Schizomyia racemicola.
A white crab spider has built its web over some galls and is waiting for its prey to emerge from these galls.
Well would you look at that - it's the gall of the Rose Root Gall Wasp (Diplolepis radicum). Despite their size and color these galls are hard to find given their position low on the stem and often covered by woodland detritus.
I've been on the look out for these for a few years now and, thanks to whoever mowed along the railroad tracks, a few galls were readily visible. Made a nice unexpected find.
Manitoba, Canada
Spotted this interesting gall yesterday, it's willow redgall sawfly larvae on a crack willow.
Continued thread
Here's another nice #plantgall. On a large Copper Beach #tree in our garden.
Visible are Mikiola fagi (gall midge) and Aceria, a gall mite.
Tree is fine btw. It's just #biodiversity doing its thing 
edit: solidifying this type of biodiversity is what "paper stuff" like europe's Nature Restoration Law is about @ https://mastodon.online/@Pepijn/112631713298650339
Continued thread
I've collected a handful of #oak #plantgalls to turn into ink 
. For now they're drying.
While it will be ground down as an ingredient I'm already happy with a special find: a double contraption where two galls grew into one. Like a peanut 
with a very special bite..
Note: they all have a little hole 
left its nest . I try to pick abandoned ones.
@temptoetiam En parlant de galles, deux trouvailles hier (respectivement sur églantier et ronce), appartenant à Diplolepis rosae (la galle s'appelle bédégar) et Diastrophus rubi. Au premier abord j'avais cru que la blanche pouvait être une chrysalide (y'a de petits fils de soie au sommet) avant de voir les trous et surtout qu'elle émanait bien de la tige.
This was *the* find for me this summer - the gall of Diastrophus fragariae, a tiny gall wasp that induces galls on strawberries. Still pumped when I think about, and only found it cause it happened to be right where I was setting up a tent for my daughter - putting a peg in and there it was, right before my eyes! #gall #galls #GallWasp #Hymenoptera #wasp #FaunaOfManitoba #strawberry
#Hatepastor #demands the #government line up all the “homos” & #shoot them in the back of the head.
He then had the #gall to #claim people were taking his #words #outofcontext because, he said, he's not going to #personally #kill #gay #people
#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #RepublicanParty #Religion #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Homophobia #Transphobia #EmptyThePews #ThePartyOfHate
LGBTQ Nation · Hate pastor demands the government line up all the "homos" & shoot them in the back of the head - LGBTQ Nation
A gall twofer on this #WaspWednesday. Both caused by gall wasps (Cynipidae). The fuzzy one is courtesy of Druon ignotum and other by Andricus dimorphus. On bur oak in Manitoba, Canada. #gall #galls #Manitoba #GallWasp #Hymenoptera #Cynipidae #wasp #insect
