Disholandricus truckeensis (Ashmead, 1896), comb. nov.

Holcaspis truckeensis
Disholcaspis truckeensis
Andricus truckeensis

Hosts: Quercus chrysolepis

[A photo of the gall appears on page 64 of the pdf]

Gall. (Figs 194–195). Hard, multilocular, smooth, potato-shaped stem galls, usually on terminal twigs. The gall is tan-colored when mature, slightly glossy, round- to oval-shaped, up to 60 mm long, 30 mm in diameter.

Biology. Only the asexual generation is only known, inducing galls on Q. chrysolepis (Burks 1979). Galls mature in autumn; adults emerge in January-February.

Range: CA

Disholcaspis truckeensis (Ashm.)

Quercus chrysolepis
Stem galls, detachable
Fig 80. Smooth, tan, bare. Poly.

80. Q. chrysolepis, vaccinifolia. Adults emerged in January and Feburary. A guest, Euceroptres montanus Weld, emerged April 27. For rearing galls should be #: to see if they are different from a somewhat similar gall which produced the banded-winged Loxaulus trizonalis Weld, sex-gen.

Disholcaspis truckeensis

Quercus wilcoxii [chrysolepis]
Stem galls
Detachable
Fig 66.

Holcaspis truckeensis, new species

Gall.--An irregular, inflated, hard, woody gall, over an inch long and about half an inch in diameter, issuing from a slit in a terminal twig of Quercus chrysolepis var vaccinifolia; polythalamous.

Habitat.--NM, CA

Andricus truckeensis, new combination

Holcaspis truckeensis
Disholcaspis truckeensis

The notauli are complete in truckeensis which indicates that this species is more properly placed in Andricus than Disholcaspis, the latter genus being its most recent assignment. Andricus truckeensis is similar to three other species in the genus which have a pubescent thorax, a blurt bristly ovipositor spine, and which occur on oaks of the subgenus Protobalanus: lasius (Ashmead), reniformis McCracken & Egbert, and spectabilis Kinsey (see generic key in Weld, 1957). McCracken & Egbert (1922) suggested that reniformis might be only a variety of truckeensis. Additional studies may indicate that these four species should be placed in a new genus.

The type galls of truckeensis bear the rearing number 3769 which indicates that they were sent to Ashmead by Koebele in 1885. They cannot be the galls from which the two adults were reared because the wasps have labels dated 1880. Furthermore, according to Ashmead his two females were reared from galls sent by Comstock (rearing #731). The Koebele galls appear to belong to another western species, A. reniformis McCracken & Egbert. Also in the USNM collection there are larger, more ovoid, smooth contoured, tan galls from Quercus chrysolepis Leibm. collected by Weld at Kyburz and Idyll wild, California, inside of which he found wasps identical with Ashmead’s adults of truckeensis. Weld (1957, fig. 80) figured this gall.

Andricus truckeensis
Round-gall wasp
[Page 142]

Hosts: Quercus chrysolepis, vacciniifolia, palmeri

This cynipid wasp induces solid, polythalamous, smooth galls on stems of canyon live, huckleberry, and Palmer's oaks.

Holcaspis truckeensis Ashmead

Gall. (Plate VIII, Fig. 13.) On the terminal twig of oak (Quercus chrysolepis var. vaccinifolia). Irregular, inflated, hard, woody gall issuing from a slit in a terminal twig. Brown, somewhat smooth with transverse depressions, caused by the coalescence of several galls. Length about 25 mm. Width about 12 mm.

Habitat. California.

The types are in the United States National Museum.