Feron tecturnarum Kinsey, 1920 comb. nov

Gall (Figs 407–408). Reddish-yellow furry leaf gall mass; a gregarious cluster of individual cells, 10–25 galls,
placed on the underside of leaf, to 20 mm long projecting from leaf by up to 15 mm.

Biology. The asexual generation is only known, which induces galls on Q. potosina (section Quercus, subsection Leucomexicana). Previous host records for the name Andricus tecturnarum from white oaks found in the southwest of the USA (e.g. Weld 1960, Burks 1979) are almost definitely attributable to the newly described species F. tetyanae, which is newly recognised in this study as being distinct from F. tecturnarum (based on both morphology and DNA sequences). The gall matures in late autumn, adults start emerging the next February.

Distribution. Mexico: San Luis Potosi (Kinsey 1920, authors).

Andricus tecturnarum

Quercus arizonica, oblongifolia, toumeyi, gambelii, subturbinella [turbinella]
Leaf galls
Detachable
Fig 91. Hairs red, crystalline.

This species remains as Andricus; pending a complete Andricus worldwide revision A. tecturnarum is considered a valid species.

[A photo of Kinsey's type gall from the AMNH collection is included on page 3 of the pdf. No description of the gall is given.]

Diplolepis tecturnarum (Kinsey)

Andricus tecturnarum

This species was described from an unknown oak from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The writer found the galls very abundant on Q. undulata at Tijeras, N. Mex., in April, 1918, and again on November 1, 1921 (adults emerging by hundreds February 20 to March 9, 1922). Galls on this oak were seen also in Blue Canyon and Nogal Canyon near Socorro, at Hillsboro and Kingston, in the Burro Mountains and in Arizona at Hackberry and Ashfork (flies emerg- ing February 14). The galls were also very common on Q. grisea at Magdalena, N. Mex., in November, 1921, the flies emerging in large numbers February 20 to March 8. Galls were seen at Williams, Ariz., also. One cluster of the galls was collected on Q. gambelii near Magdalena, flies emerging February 4r-20. At Oracle, Ariz., a few galls occurred on Q. arizonica, adults emerging March 9. Here the galls are hard to distinguish from nubila when seen up in the tree, but in hand the difference in structure is at once apparent. At Las Vegas Hot Springs galls on an unknown oak contained pupae on October 12 and adults emerged January 13, February 20, and March 8. At Shoemaker, Rowe, Glorieta, Tijeras, and Magdalena galls were seen on what may have been Q. fendleri. The galls were also seen at Fierro and in Arizona in the Huachuca and Patagonia Mountains and about Prescott.

Andricus tecturnarum, new species

Galls.--Buff or reddish brown, woolly masses containing scores of closely clustered, hollow, urn-shaped galls. Each gall is monothalamous, about 10 mm long by 3 mm in diameter, consisting of a tube, which is rather conical, but compressed by contact with the other galls, thin-walled, crystalline, the upper half hollow and open at the end, a partition separating this space from a cavity which occupies the lower half of the gall and in which the larva lives. Each gall bears straw-colored to buff or reddish brown, crystalline hairs which are most dense near the summit, and which make of the cluster a single, oval mass often 35 x 25 mm in size. The galls are all attached to the midribs, on the under surfaces of leaves of a species of Quercus.

Range: Mexico: San Luis, Potosi

The individual galls are not unlike those of Andricus crystallinus or Callirhytis tubicola in structure, but they are entirely different in details of form and in being clustered in the large, woolly masses.