Sunday 24 August 2014

A Sawfly pretending to be a Bat.

Pine Sawfly - Sherwood Pines, August 2014.  (Size approximately 6mm)
A recent find up at Sherwood Pines Centre Parcs was this beautiful looking Sawfly.  Yet again I have my son to thank who was out out on an EMEC ecological survey of their ponds.  However, he found this little beast lying dead on a car bonnet.  Into a pot and home for me to stick a pin through and take a look at a later date. It turns out to be a male of the Pine Sawfly of genus Diprion,  its ethier Diprion pini or the very similar D.similis. Trying to key these little suckers to species level is in my mind really difficult given the complexity of the RES handbooks on this subject.   Neither species are encountered all that frequently NBN gateway gives only a handful of records for both species, which is surprising given the number of pine plantations there are scattered around the country.  I can't help it but it reminds me of a long eared Bat. What do you think?
  

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