Zopheroteras compressa

Philonix compressa

Kinsey took this gall to be the alternate generation of what's now called Dryocosmus quercuspalustris

Andricus palustris form compressus

Philonix compressum

Acraspis compressus

Acraspis compressum

Acraspis compressa

Cynipidae

Zopheroteras

Quercus coccinea

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Quercus laevis

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An illustrated catalogue of American insect galls

Life histories of American Cynipidae

Zopheroteras compressum (agamic)

Acraspis compressus n. sp.

Gall.--Small sub-globular bodies from 2 to 3 mm in diameter attached to the under side of the leaves of the red oak, Quercus rubra, in the fall, about the time the leaves are beginning to turn brown. The galls appear like wax, and are either pure white or tinged with red while on the leaves, and when cut into are fleshy and juicy like a potato. The galls fall to the ground with or a little before the leaves, and each develops a single larva which gets its growth in the fall but does not emerge until the following summer. Only a very thin shell of the gall is left after the fly emerges. 

Descriptions of new Cynipidae in the Collection of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History

Philonix compressa (Gillette)
 
Acraspis compressus 
Acraspis compressa

Gall. Attached to the underside of the leaves of red oak (Quercus rubra) and scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea) in the fall, about the time the leaves are beginning to turn brown. Subglobular bodies from 2 to 3 mm in diameter. The galls appear like wax, and are either pure white or tinged with red while on the leaves, and when cut into are fleshy and juicy like a potato. They fall to the ground with or a little before the leaves, and each develops a single larva which gets its growth in the fall but does not emerge until the following summer. Only a very thin shell of the gall is left after the fly emerges.

The adult of this species is not known to me and Prof. Gillette's description of it and the gall is here reproduced. I have taken the galls in numbers at Katonah, Westchester County, NY, on the undersides of the leaves of the scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea) but did not succeed in rearing the flies. My specimens were collected in October and November. If I remember rightly, I have also taken the galls in New Jersey and on Long Island NY some years ago. 

Habitat: IA, NY

The species of Biorhiza, Philonix and allied genera, and their galls

Acraspis compressum

Q rubra.
Succulent, solid, spherical galls usually firmly attached to the leaf-blade
On ground over winters, 2-3 mm. White, wax-like in texture, plate 4, 78.

Philonix.

[Listed as Philonix compressum in the image caption]

Andricus palustris form compressus (Gillette)

Acraspis compressus Gillette, 1891, Bull. 111. Lab. Nat. Hist., Ill, p. 197. 
Acraspis compressa Dalla Torre, 1893, Cat. Hymen., Cynip., II, p. 64. Dalla Torre and Kieffer, 1902, Gen. Ins., Hymen., Cynip., p.. 58. Dalla Torre and Kieffer, 1910, Das Tierreich, XXIV, p. 409. 
Philonix compressa Beutenmuller, 1909, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., XXVI, p. 253. Felt, 1918, N. Y. State Mus. Bull., CC, p. 94. 
Acraspis compressum Thompson, 1915, Cat. Amer. Ins. Galls., pp. 15, 35, PI. iv, fig. 78. 

Galls. — Small, globular galls, (Figs. 25 and 26), 2-3 mm. in diameter, very slightly attached to the under surfaces (rarely the upper surfaces) of the leaves by a slight projection on the gall. White or pinkish, wax-like, solid and succulent at first, quickly deciduous, after which the gall enlarges and becomes brown, thin-walled, and hollow, the cavity constituting the larval cell. On the same species of red oaks, most likely, as the palustris gall.

These minute galls are very quickly deciduous, falling in October or early November, usually before the leaves, to the ground where they undergo further development. The larva does not pupate until the next spring, a little time before emerging in April or early May, just before the time of appearance of palustris galls. 

The adults [of Dryocosmus quercuspalustris, Kinsey's purported alternate generation] emerge from mid-May to June 4, depending on the latitude and the progress of the season. The insects are produced in about equal numbers of the sexes. They copulate almost immediately upon emergence and run rapidly up the branches to the young leaves, on the under sides of which they settle to oviposit, often remaining there for several days before they die. In all, only about a month has passed from the time of the first appearance of the young gall to the time of oviposition. Over ten months will be required for the alternate generation to reach full maturity. 

The experiments by which I was fortunate enough to discover the relations of the two generations of this species were made under the strictly controlled conditions which I have described in the introduction. The tree on which the sexual adults were put was covered with a net for almost a month and there was no chance of other insects having reached it during that time, nor is there much likelihood of the galls having been produced by insects from any other source. Of the thirty small oaks in the greenhouse, none produced any galls that season (1918) except the one on which the palustris had been isolated. Several scores of the adults of that form were observed to oviposit on the under surface of the leaves on which eight galls of Philonix compressa were found the first of September. The small size of the galls had prevented their detection earlier, for it is likely that they appear by the first of August. 

P. compressa was a '‘species’' known definitely from only two stations, Westchester Co., N. Y., and Ames, Iowa, while palustris had been known for sixty years to be a very abundant species throughout eastern America. It was rather surprising to find an apparently rare, local species to be the alternate form of one of the commonest of widely distributed galls. Fortunately, I recalled definitely the location of the very trees on which I had found the palustris galls from which the experimental material had been bred. I made a trip to these trees and found the leaves bearing an abundance of the compressa galls. Then I found the galls in the Millett Thompson Collection, taken in Massachusetts or lthode Island; these were figured in the Thompson Catalogue but the collection was not recorded in the text. After that, I collected compressa galls at Melrose Highlands, Forest Hills, and Blue Hills, which are in the neighborhood of Boston, and always found it abundant at that date. The small size of the galls and the fact that they are very quickly deciduous is sufficient explanation of the failure of previous collectors to find the form. 

Zopheroteras compressa (Gillette)

Acraspis compressus Gillette, Bull. IL. St. Lab. Nat. Hist., vol. 3, 1891, p. 197. 

This species was described from two specimens cut from galls. The gall in the Illinois State laboratory is ellipsoidal, 2.7 mm. by 1.8 mm. by 1.8 mm., with a slightly wrinkled brown surface, the wall thin (.2 mm.) and made up of two about equal layers, the outer brown, the inner whitish. Their type fly has been lost. The remaining gall and fly in the Gillette collection have now been deposited in the National Museum. It is a Zopheroteras. Never having reared this species, which seems to be distinct from the following [[Zopheroteras sphaerula](https://www.gallformers.org/gall/1158)], the writer does not recognize the fresh galls in the field.

Field notes on gall-inhabiting cynipid wasps with descriptions of new species

Andricus palustris OS
Agamic form, compressus Gill.

Gall small, globular, dia 2-3 mm, on under surface of leaf, pinkish, wax-like, solid.

Adults, April or early May.

On Q coccinea, falcata, palustris, phellos, rubra, velutina, ilicifolia, imbricaria, marilandica

Plant Galls and Gall Makers

Zopheroteras compressum

Quercus coccinea, rubra
Leaf galls, detachable
White, on under side as leaf is turning brown. Type gall is ellipsoidal, 2.7 mm by 1.8 mm, tan-brown, the surface slightly wrinkled. Included from literature. 

[Photo caption (no photo)]
Described from Q rubra in Iowa. The type gall in IL St Nat Hist Surv. is 2.7 by 1.8 by 1.8 mm. The type fly is in the US Natl Mus. Gall was described as pure white, on the under side of the leaf in fall as leaves begin to turn, dropping with or before the leaves.

[Presumed synonym]

Quercus catesbaei [laevis]
Leaf galls, detachable
Ellipsoid, white, bare, single, on under side in fall. Resembles the gall of Zopheroteras compressum. Seen at Ocala FL in Oct.

Cynipid galls of the eastern United States

We do not consider the relationship suspected by KINSEY (1920) between Andricus compresus (Gillette) a. f. and Andricus quercuspalustris (Osten Sacken) s. f. because the first one belongs to the genus Zopheroteras and the second one to the genus Dryocosmus.

Current state of knowledge of heterogony in Cynipidae (Hymenoptera, Cynipoidea)

The galls of this species are often associated with spots of yellow-red discoloration on the leaf near their attachment point. 

Gallformers ID Notes