#andricus

although they're a fairly generic if slightly spikier brown Andricus orb later in life, Andricus quercustozae galls start out as swollen green buds that quickly turn into these pleasant little cartoon suns. they also attract lots of parasitoids for bonus critter sightings, but you need to be careful when photographing those up close - not because they're easily scared, but because the galls are real icky sticky at this stage

Plant gore plant gore plant gore

few things are more exciting than spotting a parasitoid on a gall, but the fun can easily be ruined when said parasitoid just wanders around sniffing and never actually oviposits, like this Eurytoma on an Andricus quercustozae gall. i'm sorry, is that gall not good enough for you? do your children need more prestigious galls? do they only eat purebred larvae? do you want to put them in a private gall and pay gall tuition? get real

oak galls don't need to prove that they can basically look like anything, but here's one that really drives the point home. Andricus quercusramuli makes galls on catkins that are basically just wads of fluff that look weirdly synthetic and are a lot more resilient than you'd think, staying around for months after the wasp has ecloded (assuming it doesn't take her months to find her way out of that mess)

finding an oak means looking for galls, and finding multiple species on a single tree is always a treat. pretty much every branch of this one had at least a couple galls, but these two particularly fresh pink ones stood out. on the left is Andricus quercustozae, and on the right is Andricus grossulariae. i am aware that both look delicious but there are small children in there