Is It A Slug, Is It A Tadpole? No It's A Sawfly Larvae!

The first thing that I'd like to say is an apology for the lack of posts recently.

On the 7th of October, my Mum and I were having a walk on the Breathing Space, a local green area (see my previous post, My Wildlife Event), when my Mum spotted an odd green blob about the size of my fingernail on a leaf. It reminded me of a tiny tadpole, except this lived on land. I gave it a gentle poke to make sure that it was a living thing, and it wriggled.

We asked the local entomologist, Barry Warrington, and he identified it as an Oak Slug Sawfly, something that he doesn't see very often.

We didn't take any pictures of the Oak Slug Sawfly, so here's a picture that I found on the

Internet.

These critters usually feed on Oak, but the plant that we found our specimen on definitely wasn't an Oak - in fact we've no idea what it was!

I am rearing the Oak Slug Sawfly in a container with some Oak and leaves from the plant that we found it on. The larvae is at the present moment hibernating as a pupae in either the soil, in the leaves, or in the rotting wood that I offered it. It should emerge about May this year as an adult. I'll publish another post about it when it does emerge.

Until next time, keep on the wild side!