These green caterpillars, with their shiny black heads, are shredding the leaves on my raspberry canes (not much of a problem at this time of the year). They are larvae from a sawfly called Cladius brullei. This is sometimes called the Blackberry Sawfly, though from what I see they prefer raspberry leaves.
I wondered what was shredding the leaves of alpine strawberry plants in a planter outside the front door. Turns out to be sawfly larvae from the Strawberry Sawfly (Claremontia confusa). The sawflies are supposed to fly in May-June and people report their strawberry plants being eaten in July, so maybe these are from a second generation.
Sawfly identification is pretty hard as there are lots of species and not very many good materials on the internet to help in reliable identification, but I believe this white-legged, mostly black sawfly is Violet Sawfly / Ametastegia pallipes. This is a species which as the name suggests is found on members of the Viola family, and apparently is not rare.
Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana) has two, sometimes three generations in each summer - these two are presumably getting busy making the second generation. The sawflies like our Dog Rose, and there are often a few caterpillars there. The female lays her eggs into the fine stems at the outside of the bush, using her saw-like ovipositor. The caterpillar hatch together and as a family group set about eating all the leaves in the area.
I guess it’s one of the good things about a garden nature list that when you find some disastrous garden pest instead of throwing your hands up in horror like most gardeners, you just think it’s cool to add a new species to the list. Case in point is this Gooseberry Sawfly larva, found while I was cutting back the gooseberry bush (where anyhow gooseberry mildew had destroyed most of the crop). These larvae are quite pretty really, but in a bad infestation they will literally strip all the leaves off a gooseberry bush, and then move on to do the red currents. These sawflies have up to 3 generations in one year, so I might be less relaxed about it by the end of the summer.
#624 Gooseberry Sawfly - Nematus ribesii
This sawfly found its way into our kitchen window, so I was able to get some decent photos, but I’m still unable to get to an identification. There are 500 species of sawfly in UK, and they are very much under-represented on the Web, despite many being quite large and well marked. Changes of the classification also make it harder to find references - but a good site is https://www.sawflies.org.uk, which shows a few examples from this Genus, Euura. This individual had a nice pastel green colour on the sides of it’s body and the wing spot (pterostigma), with a striped abdomen which in the middle part was translucent against the light. These sawflies are mostly associated with trees, such as willow, hazel and alder. Hopefully I’ll be able to get closer to an identification at some stage.
Up until the end of July the only sawflies I'd found were caterpillars, but I ended up in an identification mess when the first adults emerged, rather negligently putting them down as soldier flies. Among other things the antennae of the sawflies look very different from those of soldier flies. Having finally identified Rose Sawfly (Arge ochropus) and Berberis Sawfly (Arge berberidis) found among the insects on flowering fennel during mid-August, I went back and realised I'd had adult Large Rose Sawfly (Arge pagana) during July, perhaps hatched from the caterpillars I correctly identified back in early July. Rose and Large Rose Sawflies look a bit similar, but the former has distinctive black & white "football socks" on its legs.
Including #159 Lesser Willow Sawfly (larvae on willow tree) I only recorded four species of sawfly since June, which means as there are 600 species in UK, I should be able to find many more - even if it means waiting for next summer.
This looks like a shiny kind of wasp taking a rest in the veg plot, but after some book-work I reckon it's a Figwort Sawfly (#278). Working out the identification is quite difficult as there are several other parasitic wasps and wasp mimicking nomad bees and hoverflies that look pretty similar. This sawfly’s larvae live on the figwort plant, while the adults hunt smaller insects.
Passionate about nature, based in Gloucestershire UK; this site is about creating a wildlife friendly family garden and exploring the diversity of animal & plant species that share it with us.
As a nature lover and wildlife gardener I started wondering about the biodiversity in my backyard and just how many species from plants to insects to birds to mammals might live in or visit it.
Much of the wildlife in my small, village garden has been present right under my nose for years without my really appreciating it, so on the way I am learning a lot about different species and how to make a wildlife-friendly environment for them; also getting engaged more in conservation activities around Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and the Cotswolds.
My garden species tally started from zero on June 1st 2018, the target was 1000 species, which I eventually hit in June 2024. But there’s still plenty to see and learn about.
I'm very interested in your comments & advice: whether it's about the blog, some help with identification or just how to make my own little Eden better for wildlife. So please leave a comment or drop me a line if you feel like it!
Graham Tompsett
microedenproject@gmail.com
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