Acraspis alaria

Quercus gambelii
Leaf galls
Detachable
Globular, solitary, spiny, 9-11 mm, in fall.

Cynips villosa variety alaria
agamic form

Acraspis alaria

GALL. — Mature gall straw-yellow in color, up to 11.0 mm. in diameter, the spines up to 2.5 mm. in length, rather flexuous, slender, the whole gall appearing as a mass of coarse and tangled hairs; on the leaves of Quercus Gambelii, Q. submollis [synonym of gambelii], and probably related oaks.

RANGE. — Colorado: Colorado Springs (Pollock in U.S. Nat. Mus.; types). New Mexico: Raton Pass near Raton (F. Cogshall in Kinsey coll.). 28 miles east of Raton (C. Schwachheim in Kinsey coll.). Probably restricted to a Rocky Mountain area in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, probably not to be expected south of the Sandia Mountains in New Mexico. Figure 59.

This is the southern Rocky Mountain variety of the species, a short-winged insect replaced in the southern two-thirds of New Mexico and Arizona by the long-winged acraspiformis, but in Utah by the short-winged calvescens. The material collected by Frederick Cogshall near Raton, New Mexico, was full-sized late in July (1926), and the larva was large enough to complete development in spite of a prolonged drying to which its gall was subjected before reaching our laboratory. This insect emerged out-of-doors at Bloomington, Indiana, on December 18 (1926). The galls of the type material were collected at Colorado Springs on November 4 (1918), one adult emerging on November 11 while others were found alive in the breeding cage on the following January 15.