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If you’ve been following along here for a while, you might remember last year’s ‘first for Wales’ find, the distinctive marks on leaves of Wych elm trees of the Elm zigzag sawfly (Aproceros leucopoda) (Zorro comes to Wales, October 2021). For the past couple of weeks I’ve been monitoring the trees where I first saw those marks and, yesterday, found them again, with the larvae that create them in situ, happily munching away on the elm leaves. In fact, following a good look around the area, I found larvae on six Wych elm trees (and there were other trees I couldn’t access), and then found a single larva on a Wych elm at Cosmeston, perhaps half a mile away. It will be interesting to see how quickly these creatures spread through the local landscape.

220514 elm zigzag sawfly larvae