114
Aulacidea follioti Barbotin, 1972 lkm.sq. records: 8 Scarce Fig. 2
Host plant: Sonchus asper (L.) Hill, Prickly sow-lhislle
Part galled: stem and branches of inflorescence
This species was added to the British list on the basis of galls found in 1993 at Fingringhoe
Ranges on the Essex coast near Colchester (Bowdrey, 1996). Adults were reared in 1994 and
identified by Dr. J.L.Nicvcs-Aldrcy of Madrid, a world authority on the genus. Until 1998, when
it was discovered in east Suffolk (Bowdrey, in press), the species was known in Britain only
from a handful of sites on the Essex coast.
Aulacidea follioti
Galls occur as several centimetre long,
irregular swellings on the lower stem of
Sonchus asper (Prickly sow-thistle) but can
also occur on the finer stems of the
inflorescence where they are often spindle
shaped. The galls turn from green to yellow
before assuming the colour of the dead
plant stem. The larvae are yellowish in
colour and occupy elliptical cells in the
stem wall of the host. Fig.2 shows a
sectioned stem with larval cells.)
Fig. 2
Galled plants have been found on sea walls, grazing
marsh and between concrete blocks on the outer side
of the sea wall. It appears that maritime grassland is
the preferred locality for this species, although the
host plant is common in arable fields, gardens and
disturbed waste ground. Fortunately the galls are
mature when the annual cut of sea wall swards is
undertaken in late summer, but earlier cutting,
promoting secondary flowering would doubtless be
fatal to the larvae.
The adult insect is largely black, a full description is
given in Barbotin (1972).
© J.P. Bowdrey
Essex Naturalist (New Series) 16 (1999)