Associations

Some interesting associations from the last couple of weekends.

These sawfly larvae Nematus ribesii like our white current bush but ignored both the blackcurrents and gooseberries immediately adjacent, interesting as the are called Gooseberry Sawfly in English. A colleague has them in his Orkney garden too and they have decimated his Gooseberry bushes.

Nematus ribesii - Gooseberry Sawfly larvae.

I noticed some adult wasps around the sawfly larvae and at first though they might be adults, but were a bit small, a bit of a rethink and asking the experts, thanks JS and GB and they were identified as an Ichneumon, Eridolius sp (unfortunately tricky to get to species), a beautiful animal though.

Eridolius sp.

Then I was admiring the Cat's-ear which is gradually establing in our lawn, both front and back. We've found that raising the mower blades and cutting less frequently is helping this to establish (not cutting at all doesn't seem to work). As I was photographing it I found myself getting showered with aphids.

Aphids on Cat's-ear.

Cat's-ear.

A little bit of research and I found that there are about 24 species of aphid associated with genus Hypochaeris in the UK. A look at the key was a bit off-putting with a lot of terms to understand. Nature Spot didn't have a helpful photo, however, googling took me back to the Influentialpoints website (where I started out) and suggested an identification of Uroleucon hypochoeridis, this looks spot on for my animals. Job done (maybe, I think I might just tweet and see if I get a response).

Uroleucon hypochoeridis.