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The gall is quite noticeable, reaching several centimetres in length, distorting the flower stem
and sometimes causing several flower heads to develop. It is green, turning yellowish before
assuming the colour of the dead inflorescence in winter.
The adult insect has mesopleuron reticulate with some longitudinal rugulae or striae in the upper
part. Scutellar foveae clearly separated and open externally, length of radial cell twice width.
Genus AULACIDEA Ashmead, 1897
Aulacidea andrei (Kieffer) 1km. sq. records: 1? doubtfully native
Host plant: Hypochoeris maculata L., Spotted cat's ear
Pari galled: leaf
The sole British record of Illis species is of three galls found on a leaf of Hypochoeris maculata
near Walton-on-the-Naze in August 1931 (Bagnall, 1931). The occurrence of H. maculata at
Walton is not noted in the botanical literature (Gibson, 1862; Jermyn, 1974; Tarpey & Heath,
1990) and it would be surprising to find this chalk downland species in this area. Indeed, there
appears to be only one doubtful record of this plant growing wild in north-east Essex, from
Mistley, in 1953 (Jermyn, 1974).
No further records of A. andrei and its gall in Britain have been traced, a fact which led Eady &
Quinlan (1963) to delete it from the British list.
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 16 (1999)