| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera |
Sawflies.
Adults small to medium sized; 8–10 mm long.
Head. Sub-antennal grooves absent. Antennal segments 4 (but the terminal one tiny). Antennae with a very elongated third segment.
Thorax. Pronotum deeply indented or emarginate at the back. Cenchri present. Fore-wings with the venation well developed. Hind tibiae without specialised spurs.
Abdomen. The abdomen broadly sessile at its base, without a marked constriction. Ovipositor of females not visibly protruding; adapted as a saw.
Larvae. Larvae legless or the legs vestigial; phytophagous (boring in fern stems).
General comments. Known as native only from Goldstich Moss, Staffs., but occasionally found in botanical gardens such as Kew and Wisley.
British representation. Species in Britain 1; Blasticoma.
Classification. Suborder Symphyta; Superfamily Tenthredinoidea.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.