While photographing leaves Tuesday I found this odd but beautiful site. I am assuming it is an egg of some sort. The picture does it no justice the colors were gorgeous! I think we will have to check out my friend's favorite site What's that Bug. G was trying to catch minnows when I found this so he only saw the pictures... he (and I) are very excited to check on it's progress when we go back to the park next week.
UPDATE: My good friend School for Us emailed me today with some links that may identify this beautiful mass... a gall aka wasp house. Some wasp larvae secrete a chemical which mutates the cells of the young leaf or branch and causes it to form a gall which provides food and shelter for the growing wasp. Wow! Check out these links for a better explaination and a beautiful poster.
Apples on an Oak? by Walking Prescott
Oak Galls by Handbook of Nature
Wasp Gall Poster By Ron Russo
4 comments:
Oh, wow!!!! That's so neat! I hope you find out what it is. :-)
I did do some checking last night - and came up completely empty! What kind of tree did you find it on? Maybe that'd be a clue. I'm so curious!!!
It is, we think, a chestnut oak.
I submitted the pics to What's that Bug and am hoping for a reply someday. I have also tried looking up spores but come up empty. DH asked it we brought it home... I didn't even think to do that.
When we went back the next week it was still there in the same condition. I thought about bringing it home but I didn't want to kill it or wake up with things crawling all over my kitchen!
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