Pinyon Spindlegall Midge – Pinyonia edulicola

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Pinyon Spindle gall Midge (Pinyonia edulicola)

Latin Name: Pinyonia edulicola

Common Name: Pinyon Spindlegall Midge

Appearance: 

  • There are 5 to 40 little orange legless maggots in each gall. The larvae hibernate in the galls and pupate in the spring.
  • The plant produces a gall around the larvae it is feeding. There are 5 to 40 little orange legless maggots in each gall.

Hosts plants:

Pinon

Damage insect caused by Pinyon Spindlegall Midge: 

Pinyonia edulicola is a species of Pinyonia. Gagné induced a pinyon, Piuus edulis Engelm, to develop a spindle-shaped needle gall. This is a common forest bug that causes only minor damage. Heavy infestations in urban areas, on the other hand, cause considerable defoliation by causing needles to drop prematurely.

Description about Leafminers:

Leafminer adults are tiny flies with yellow areas on their thorax, legs, and abdomen. They are 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) long, black to blue, and have yellow portions on their thorax, legs, and stomach. There is frequently a visible yellow patch towards the base of the wings. The white eggs are hidden behind the leaf’s epidermis and hatch in 4 to 6 days. Maggot larvae are typically buried between leaf surfaces in the mines where they feed; they range in color from yellow to white, are 0.25 to 0.33 inches long, flat at the back end and pointed in front, and are 0.25 to 0.33 inches long, blunt at the back end and pointed in front. Pupation is carried out underground or in mines. During the summer, the life cycle lasts around 23 days.

Life History and Habits: 

Pinyonia edulicola produced just one generation every year. From mid-June to mid-July, the adults emerged, mated, and lay eggs on the forming needles. The larvae migrated down between the needles to eat at the base after the eggs hatched in approximately a week. With the new plant tissue enclosing the larvae, feeding appeared to be connected with gall development. Each gall had five to forty larvae, which stayed there until late May the following year. A frothy communal pupal sac develops inside the gall at that time. From late May through mid-June, the pupal stage lasted. After that, the pupae crawled up between the needles, shed their pupal cases, and developed as adults.