the.com/sawfly
A wasp's harmless cousin whose babies are basically organized vandals with a vegetarian agenda.
means A sawfly is a plant-eating insect related to wasps and bees, named for the saw-like ovipositor the female uses to slit into plants and lay her eggs.
from A plain English compound of 'saw' and 'fly,' coined to describe exactly what the female does: she carries a tiny serrated egg-laying tool that saws into stems and leaves like a miniature blade. 'Saw' traces back to Old English 'sagu' and a Germanic root tied to cutting (a distant cousin of the same family that gives us Latin 'secare,' to cut). 'Fly' is Old English 'flēoge,' simply a flying insect — the loose old habit of calling many small winged things 'flies,' whether or not they were true flies. So the name is honest carpentry: a flying thing with a saw.
- named for
- Female's saw-toothed egg-laying blade slices into plants
- not a fly
- Actually belongs to the wasp and bee order
- larval mob
- Caterpillar lookalikes that rear up in unison defensively
- ancient lineage
- Oldest group of stinging-insect relatives alive
- no sting
- That fearsome saw lays eggs, never attacks you
pergid sawfly — defoliates conifers across north america and europe, causing significant forest damage
wheat stem sawfly — cephus cinctus damages wheat crops in canada and northern us great plains
common gooseberry sawfly — nematus ribesii larvae strip gooseberry and currant bushes bare in temperate regions