Striatoandricus furnessae (agamic)

Callirhytis furnessae, new species

Late in December, 1911, Mrs. Dwight Furness, of Guadalajara, Mexico, sent me some white woolly galls tinged with pink on oak twigs and resembling those of Callirhytis seminator Harris. They came from Tarecuato, in the State of Michoacan. One of these galls is represented in figure A. A distinctly marked black and white species of Synergus began to issue January 5, 1912, and continued until after February 1. 

On April 7, 1912, 1 received from Mrs. Furness another box of similar galls but so much larger that I at first thought they must be a different species. These were almost pure white. See figure B. They are probably full-grown specimens of the same species, and from these a Callirhytis began to issue April 20 and continued to emerge until May 20, 1912, coming out in greatest numbers the last week in April. On June 1, 1912, more of the same species of Synergus mentioned above began to emerge, males and females, coming out at intervals until late in December, 1912. Both species are probably new. 

Host : An unknown species of oak, probably of the white oak group [Quercus rugosa added as a placeholder], and the one common to high altitudes on the western slope of the central plateau of Mexico. 

Gall : Large woolly mass nearly or quite encircling twigs 5 mm. or less in diameter. When full grown the largest specimen measured 85 mm. long by 60 mm. in diameter. Each mass is made up of separate elements, from a few to over 1 50 in number, each of which contains a single larval cavity and each of which is covered with a dense coating of long white wool as in C. seminator. But the elements of this gall are quite different from those, being rhomboidal in outline instead of round spindle- shaped, variously distorted by pressure so that no two are alike ; they are not prolonged at apex into a long slender spine which bears the hairs as in seminator but these are hairy to the base; the wall is more woody and thicker instead of a mere shell. See figures C and D.

This is probably the same gall collected by Silvestri at Jalapa, Mexico, in 1 908 and described by Trotter under the name "? Callirhytis sp." in Boll. Laboro. Zool. Portici 5:127, Tav. I, figs. 7-8, 1910 ; Marcellia 10:55, Tav. I, figs. 7-8. 1911. 

A new oak gall from Mexico