Detective Gluck

I was walking down by the stream one day and came across some interesting growths on the wild roses growing there. Of course, I had to investigate! Come to find out, these strange mossy looking balls were actually insect houses. The insects actually program the plant to make them grow these galls in various forms. I later open some and found inside tiny grubs which I found out were the larva of developing wasps. These wasps are not the ones you usually see, however, but tiny ones that usually go unnoticed unless you see their handiwork, these amazing structures.

Click below to open the Powerpoint presentation on these interesting creatures. If you have the Keynote app you can also open it in that.

mossy-rose-galls