Feron splendens (Weld, 1919), comb. nov.

Gall (Fig. 353). Single or scattered on the underside of leaf. Cylindrical with ends and middle slightly swollen, 2.0 mm in diameter and 3–5 mm high, with a crystalline appearance, covered with short stout blunt spines from which run faint decurrent ridges. Sessile, often lop-sided, spines more numerous on basal third. The gall is rosy red with a straw yellow band around the middle and some yellow at either end. The basal third is solid, with a thinwalled larval cell in the middle of the gall while the distal third or more is tubular with a slightly flared open end. The exit hole is in the hollow portion (Weld 1919).

Biology. Only the asexual generation is known, which induces leaf galls on Q. grisea, Q. turbinella, and Q. x undata (section Quercus, subsection Leucomexicana). Galls mature in late autumn; the larvae transform to adults in autumn but remain in the gall all winter and emerge the following spring in April–May.

Distribution. USA: AZ, NM (Burks 1979); Mexico: Chihuahua, Durango.

Andricus splendens

Quercus subturbinella [turbinella]
Leaf galls
Detachable
Fig 95.

Diplolepis splendens

The writer collected galls of this species November 7, 1921, in Blue Canyon west of Socorro, N. Mex., on Quercus undulata, adults emerging April 5 and 26. More were taken near Magdalena on Q. grisea, the galls containing adults in December, flies emerging March 9, April 6, and many April 26. They were also taken on Q. undulata in Nogal Canyon south of Socorro and at Kingston on Q. grisea. The species was previously known in the United States only from Q. grisea and from Arizona.

Andricus splendens
Spiked-tube-gall wasp

Quercus turbinella

These striking monothalamous galls are tubular, with scattered, stiff projections or spikes protruding from their sides, including the top edge.