Eastern Pine Gall

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Ken Ramos
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Eastern Pine Gall

Post by Ken Ramos »

No its not as pretty as a damsel or a dragon, nor does it have wings and beautiful spots. I ran across this thing while looking for something worthwhile to photograph. Alas I found nothing today but this thing caught my attention and I wondered just what it was. :-k

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Eastern Pine Gall
Fuji S7000, Marco mode 2
1/125 sec. @ f/2.8 ISO 200
Daylight

At first I thought to myself, "self... that looks like myxomycetes!" However closer examination proved wrong. What I did find out was that "galls" such as this one, are caused by insects and a host of other tiny organisms. Wasps were the culprits for many plant galls and I found out that their larva inside a bean, is what makes a jumping bean, jump! :o
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ken, this is really interesting to me from several standpoints.

First, I've seen lots of galls on different kinds of plants, but never one on a pine tree. That's up here in the Pacific Northwest, of course. I don't know beans about southeast forests.

Second, I can't recall seeing a gall on anything that has this fascinating rust-like stuff on it. I have seen a few plants with stuff on them that looked like this, but it was just on stems and leaves, not on obvious swellings. I just assumed it was some kind of fungus.

So I have no idea what this swelling is. It could very well be a gall. Whatever it is, I agree that it's pretty, as well as pretty weird.

Third, I was intrigued by your story about the mexican jumping bean, because I had always thought they actually were beans, albeit with an insect larva inside. As usual, the (more) full story turns out to be even more interesting. According to http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plaug97.htm, the classic mexican jumping "bean" is neither a bean nor a gall, but rather the "small, thin-shelled section of a seed capsule" of a deciduous shrub, with a moth larva inside. However, there are some other things that are galls made by wasps, but they're a lot smaller. Says the WaynesWord site:
The WAYNE'S WORD staff did some investigating, and sure enough, there is a "jumping gall" that behaves very much like a Mexican jumping bean. This amazing story is discussed in an article by F.A. Leach (Natural History Vol. 23, 1923). The minute, globose galls are only 1 mm in diameter. They are attached to the leaves of several native oaks in California's Sacramento Valley. Each gall is inhabited by a tiny cynipid gall wasp appropriately named the "jumping oak gall wasp" (Neuroterus saltatorius). When the minute galls fall to the ground they begin hopping about like fleas. According to F.A. Leach, they can jump over one centimeter vertically and twice as far horizontally. Like jumping beans, the larva inside is active during the summer months, but ceases its activity later in the fall when it changes into a pupa. The gall topic is a favorite one at WAYNE'S WORD and the subject of future articles.
This is cool stuff. Who knows what remains to be discovered in the depths of forests and beans?

A nice thought-provoking picture -- thanks!

--Rik

PS. Being basically suspicious, I did a Google search on Neuroterus saltatorius. If Wayne's Word is putting us on, they're pulled in quite a few collaborators. There are literally a couple hundred sites that refer to these beasts as the "jumping oak gall" wasp, including at least one U.S. Forest Service site. So they're probably real. I was afraid for a while that they were going to turn out to be like those "hotheaded naked ice borers" reported in Discover magazine some years ago. :wink:

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Post by S. Alden »

That is some right up Rik and some good information. Thanks for looking it up and posting.

Ken - You sure do have strange-looking stuff in your yard :lol: .
The background is distracting and blown, but I suppose the light was not the best. The subject is great. For some reason it reminds me of those swimming caps people use to wear when they went to the pool.
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Rik> I went to Waynes Word and read a little of what was there about galls. I have also read about them in a book called: "A Guide to Nature in Winter" by Donald Stokes. They are quite interesting. Like you I have seen galls on many kinds of plants, especially Goldenrod but never on a pine tree. I have also found what I thought were galls on oaks along the Blue Ridge Parkway here in WNC and they are much much larger, some measuring two feet or more in size and they too are caused by insects but they are called something else other than a gall. :D

Sue> There is no telling what you will find in my yard. I once found a Copperhead almost as big around as my arm and twice as long while mowing one day. It was not the only one that I have ran across either. :shock: I will have to try and get some shots this summer of what I call "mountain spiders" and post one (if I can get my courage up of course :lol: ). These things are huge, about the size of a lid on a jar of mayo! I once poked one in the butt with the tip of my flyrod while fishing one afternoon. It promptly turned around an bit it! :lol:

Yeah the background is extremely blown and I did not think to stop down before taking the photo. :( I was more interested in the peculiar gall than anything else and I was shooting upwards towards the sky. :roll: Now that you have mentioned it, it does look like one of those old swimming caps people used to wear or one of those weird aliens you might see on an old sci fi movie. :lol:
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Gee, blown backgrounds kind of go with the territory when you're shooting up, in a forest. I guess you could attack that problem with HDR compositing (high dynamic range), but that would be way more trouble than it's worth in this case.

Actually, I didn't even notice the blown background until Sue mentioned it. Now that I do notice it, I'm impressed by how little flare it caused -- the gall has good color and clean darks all the way to its edge. Ken, that's a good lens you got there!

--Rik

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Post by Ken Ramos »

Thanks Rik. I kind of like the FinePix series cameras because they are so user friendly but if you want to do, do it yourself photography and I do, they are quite flexable for a fixed lens system. :D One day I would like to have one of the Fuji dSLR pro series because for one thing they use a commonly found battery (AA) but that relates to big $$$ :lol:
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Post by S. Alden »

Ken Ramos wrote:Thanks Rik. I kind of like the FinePix series cameras because they are so user friendly but if you want to do, do it yourself photography and I do, they are quite flexable for a fixed lens system. :D One day I would like to have one of the Fuji dSLR pro series because for one thing they use a commonly found battery (AA) but that relates to big $$$ :lol:
Ken...Ken...Ken.... :lol: . You are going to consider more than the batteries when you go to buy that Canon Mark II right?
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Post by Ken Ramos »

Of course! I am considering how to get you to buy it for me, instead of me buying it for you. :lol: Besides I do not like rechargable batteries. They have a memory. If you do not completely discharge them and then recharge them, they will think that at a certain power level they need recharging and will want to quit on you. AA batteries are fairly cheap, easy to find and you can always carry a couple of fresh sets with you in the field. :D
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Ken Ramos wrote:Besides I do not like rechargable batteries. They have a memory. If you do not completely discharge them and then recharge them, they will think that at a certain power level they need recharging and will want to quit on you.
This "memory" thing was a big issue with the old ni-cads, but I have read that the newer technologies don't have it.

My Canon 300D uses Li-ion. One battery will take a couple hundred pictures per charge, depending on how much I use flash, auto-focus, and the LCD display. For extended trips, I bought a couple of generic equivalent batteries from Adorama -- half the price of Canon's and higher capacity in the bargain.

If I were going backpacking for a couple of weeks and planned to take several GB of memory cards, then I'd worry about my batteries. As it is, there's a bullet item on my planning checklist that says "charge batteries", but otherwise the issue seldom crosses my mind.

--Rik

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Post by Ken Ramos »

Rik:
This "memory" thing was a big issue with the old ni-cads, but I have read that the newer technologies don't have it.
That is good to know Rik. :D I do not keep up with such things much anymore so I was not aware of the new technology in batteries. I use Li-ion in my Fuji S7000, four of them and they last for a considerable time. However I am not much of an avid photographer either when out backpacking and that is unfortunate. I have missed a lot of good photographs, mostly by being captivated by what I have found and trying to collect samples to bring home to lab. :roll:
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mbaro
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Oooh, galls.

Post by mbaro »

I have an unhealthy obsession with plant galls. They're just so... fascinating.

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Post by Ken Ramos »

For a subject that I did not think would bring much interest, there sure seems to be more than I expected. Hello Min, it is good to have you posting again. Maybe you can show us some of the plant galls from your area. By the way, how's the monkey out in the yard, you still feeding him I hope? :D
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