A Galling Puzzle

First off we have the galls that are easily mistaken for Cylindrococcus which I wrote about here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/casuarina-glauca-galls/journal/73965-the-deceptively-named-casuarina-gall-cylindrococcus-spiniferus. The experts on Inat think they are probably a wasp or maybe a fly.

I'll refer to this first type as cone galls:

These fluffy ball galls are also thought to be wasps by Inat experts, or at least not scale insects.

The fluffy ball galls sometimes occur with what I'll call club galls:

I recently saw an example of club galls without the fluffy ball galls:

Perhaps the club galls become cone galls? Seems doubtful, here's an observation which includes what looks like small immature cone galls: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/133555616

This fluffy ball gall sort of looks like it might be turning into a hard woody gall:

If the fluffy ball galls do 'grow up' to become hard woody galls, which i doubt, not many of them seem to make it to maturity.

What is the relationship between all these gall types? Where does one species end and another begin?
The occurrence of different gall types together seems too frequent to be coincidental.

Perhaps the fluffy ball galls provide an advantageous spot for other species to build their galls? Are there parasitic or symbiotic relationships involved? Could sexual dimorphism between galls explain some of the variation? Or does one gall type metamorphose into another type? Seems doubtful.

So many questions. Please share any theories you may have, no matter how crackpot.

There are a couple of other mysterious gall types that I think are unrelated to this particular confusion of galls, I will leave those for another post.

For now I will keep on observing and looking for clues.

Posted on 19 de janeiro de 2023, 07:45 AM by vavilovian_mimic