Seven new species of galling scale insects
Galls are remarkable - insect collections often have trays of gall specimens amongst their trays of insects. Many different groups of insects make galls in plant tissues, often in very characteristic shapes.
In a recent paper in Zookeys, taxonomist Nate Hardy from Auburn University, USA and colleagues revise the genus Lachnodius, part of an Australian radiation of felt scale insects that produce galls in eucalypts and bloodwoods.
The previous three species in the genus are now joined by by seven new ones, with delightful names such as L. eucalypti , L. brimblecombei, L. melliodorae and the aptly named L. newi.
Galls have always fascinated me because they can look like part of the plant until you learn what actually created them. My nephew once found several unusual bumps on leaves during a school nature project, so we photographed them and used Google to compare the shapes with insect gall examples. I had google customer support saved from an earlier account issue, which was handy while sorting out the shared photo folder we used for his project. Discovering seven new species shows how much there still is to document. Tiny insects are easy to overlook, yet their relationships with plants can be surprisingly complex.