I held back some images of a sawfly that I photographed at Murvagh on Sunday to see if I could get an identification. I managed to get it successfully to Tenthredidae, but could get no closer than that. I have now had confirmation from Hungary that it is the grass-feeding
Tenthredopsis nassata:
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| The sawfly Tenthredopsis nassata |
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| The sawfly Tenthredopsis nassata
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| The sawfly Tenthredopsis nassata
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Not the best photographs I have ever taken (all on manual focus, since it was flitting from one grass to another very quickly), but a very handsome beast nevertheless. 15mm long from nose to tail (and probably an egg-laying female, since you can just make out the 'saw' in the last photograph).
I also took time to update my
Species Index, which now contains 1430 species, an increase of 29 since this date last year.
5 comments:
Is that 1403 species that you have seen in your area? That is an amazing total.
The Sawfly is a handsome beast.
Toffeeapple: That's 1430 identified species since 2003. Most are extremely local to me (say within 5 miles), but a few are from slightly further away on the west coast (about 25 miles). The list would be a great deal larger if I captured species to identify them, but I let my camera do the capturing instead.
Nice sawfly - what's the purple grass it's on - one of the Poas?
Gill: I didn't have time to look at the grasses at that particular moment. Looks like a Poa, although I do know there was a lot of Holcus lanatus around that area. Looks wrong for that, though.
Your dedication and enthusiasm are an inspiration to us all. Your blog, Stuart, is often my 'first stop' when I find an insect that is new to me ... despite the different habitats we inhabit!
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