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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera |
Sawflies.
Adults small to medium sized; 5–10 mm long.
Head. Sub-antennal grooves absent. Antennal segments 17–23.
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 with segmented legs; phytophagous (defoliators of conifers, including several pest species).
General comments. Fore tibiae with two more or less equal-sized apical spurs. Broad-bodied sawflies, with characteristic antennae, which are serrated in the females and feathery-pectinate in the males.
British representation. Species in Britain 9; Diprion, Gilpinia, Microdiprion, Monoctenus, and Neoprion.
Classification. Suborder Symphyta; Superfamily Tenthredinoidea.
Illustrations. • Diprion pini (Pine Sawfly: B. Ent. 54). • Diprion pini (detail: B. Ent. 54). • Diprion pini (dissections: B. Ent. 54). • Diprion pini: B. Ent. 54, legend+text. • Diprion pini: B. Ent. 54, text cont.. • Diprion pini (Pine Sawfly: Cameron II, vi). D. pini (female). 1a, maxilla; 1b, labium; 1c, ovipositor; 1d, sheath of ovipositor; 1e, female antenna. • Microdiprion pallipes (Cameron II, vi). Microdiprion pallipes (male). • Gilpinia and Neodiprion (Cameron III). 2 and 3, Neodiprion sertifer (Geoffroy in Fourcroy), female and male, respectively. 4, Gilpinia pallida (Klug). 5, Gilpinia frutetorum (Fabr.). From Cameron (1890). • Larvae: Diprion, Gilpinia (Cameron II, xii & xiii). 7 & 11: Diprion pini. 9: Gilpinia pallida.
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’.
