Tag Archives: British sawflies

Sawfly: Athalia rosae

18 Friday Sep 2026

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These orange and black sawflies can be tricky to identify, and I got this one wrong when I first recorded it, failing to take proper note of its distinguishing features: orange abdomen and legs, black head and shoulder pads, black front edge to its wings. (I rather like its stripey ‘socks’.)

Fortunately, the national verifier is patient and understanding; he ‘redetermined’ my record rather than just refusing it, as one or two less generous verifiers have been known to do. (I do understand that they must get fed up with some of the crazy records they see.)

So, I can state with absolute certainty that these two beauties are Turnip sawflies (Athalia rosae); they are also known by the common name Turnip tigress, which I rather like, though the name is a clue as to why this species is not well liked by farmers – their larvae, which are a very dark grey-green, feed on cruciferous plants (Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, Radish, and Turnip, amongst others) and can have a devastating effect on crops.

Sawfly: Abia fasciata

01 Wednesday Jul 2026

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At a quick first glance, I thought this creature was a hoverfly, one of the larger species like Volucella pellucens (the last of the five hoverflies featured in Five big hovers, June 2025) but, when I looked more closely, I noticed the multiple rounded bands across its abdomen and knew it must be a species of sawfly. It was not, however, a species I’d ever seen before, so let’s give a warm welcome to Abia fasciata, also known as the Banded clubhorn.

Though records are not particularly numerous, this distinctive sawfly is present throughout Britain and, according to The Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website, has been recorded as far north as Inverness. Its larvae feed on plants from the Caprifoliaceae family, not a name I’d heard previously, but it includes the various honeysuckles (which is what I presume local specimens use as a larval plant), as well as a diverse range of plants that includes Elder, Guelder-rose, and Snowberry. The larvae are rather striking (see the Sawflies website) so I’ll definitely be checking for them on any Honeysuckle plants near where I spotted this adult.

A new sawfly slug

11 Wednesday Sep 2024

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Back at the start of August, I blogged about The weird & wonderful world of Sawfly larvae, which included two of the slug-like species Caliroa annulipes and Caliroa cerasi. Recently, I found another one, Caliroa cinxia, a larva that looks very similar to Caliroa annulipes but its front end – more accurately, its thoracic region – is much more yellow in colour. You can read more about it and see what the adult sawfly looks like on The Sawflies (Symphyta) of Britain and Ireland website.

240911 Caliroa cinxia

The weird & wonderful world of Sawfly larvae

01 Thursday Aug 2024

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I mentioned earlier in the week, in my post about the sawfly larva Heterarthrus vagans mining the leaves of Alder, that I’d found that miner while checking out leaves to see what small creatures had been munching holes in their leaves. And my recent staring at holey leaves on other trees and shrubs, in other locations, has produced a nice variety of Sawfly larvae, some that look like regular caterpillars, others like slimy slugs. I’ve linked the names to the Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website for those interested in more information on each species.

240801 Caliroa annulipes

Caliroa annulipes on Hawthorn

240801 Caliroa cerasi

Caliroa cerasi, also on Hawthorn

240801 cladius sp

An unidentified Cladius species, on Field rose

240801 eriocampa ovata

The one that looks like bird poo, Eriocampa ovata, on Alder

240801 Euura pavida

One of the bum-waggling species, Euura pavida, on Willow

240801 Nematus septentrionalis

Another bottom waggler, Nematus septentrionalis, on Birch. I love how their munching has created a heart from their leaf.

Leafmines: Scolioneura betuleti

24 Monday Jun 2024

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Staring at the leaves of young Birch trees paid off once again when I recently spotted these large blotches.

240624 Scolioneura betuleti (2)

They were made by the larvae of Scolioneura betuleti, a small black sawfly – you can see a photo of the adult on The Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website. The larvae are active in early summer and again in the autumn – the British Leafminers website has images of the distinctive larvae.

240624 Scolioneura betuleti (1)

Saw-fly

25 Saturday Nov 2023

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Did you know that the sawfly gets its name from the way it lays its eggs? Innocuous little flies, like the beauty shown below (Arge pagana, one of the UK species that uses the rose as its larval plant), have an in-built saw-like body part that they use to cut a slot in their larval plant material and in that slot they lay their eggs.

231125 Arge pagana

On some plants, like the stems of the various Rosa species used by Arge pagana, the slot leaves quite a substantial scar and, this week, for the first time, I noticed one of these when checking Dog roses for leafmines. As you can see, there’s a healthy leaf bud right next to the scar so the plant doesn’t seem to have been damaged by the slot-making process, though the voracious larvae that hatched from the eggs earlier in the year may well have stripped the rose of many of its leaves.

231125 sawfly egg scar

A Cladius on rose

06 Friday Oct 2023

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Another day, another Cladius sawfly – actually, this time, 6 sawfly larvae, all munching away on the leaves of a Field rose. I was hoping their identification would be as easy as yesterday’s Cladius ulmi, with its distinctive black-spotted face, but no!

231006 Cladius on rose (1)

This time my expert confirmed it was definitely a Cladius species and that my guess of Cladius pectinicornis was the most likely but C. pilicornis and C. compressicornis also use rose as their larval plant of choice. When I consulted The Sawflies (Symphyta) of Britain and Ireland website I found for C. pilicornis that the only larva shown on the website had a broad dark stripe down its back and the text said the larvae associated with Hawthorn, not rose, so that seemed unlikely. However, when I checked C. compressicornis, it did look to be a likely contender, with features and larval plants very similar to C. pectinicornis.

231006 Cladius on rose (2)

So, once again I have to concede that I can’t put an exact name to these very cute little sawfly larvae, but I certainly enjoyed watching them. When much in the world around us seems maddening and/or depressing, I find there’s something very calming about watching caterpillars eating and gliding about.

231006 Cladius on rose (3)

A Cladius on Wych elm

05 Thursday Oct 2023

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There are just seven species of Cladius sawfly found in Britain, which, you might think, would make them relatively easy to identify. Sadly, this isn’t the case, especially in their larval forms, as all their caterpillars look very similar, and even the expert I consulted said he was unsure about the larval differences.

231005 Cladius ulmi (1)

However, I seem to have struck it lucky with this particular species as The Sawflies (Symphyta) of Britain and Ireland website says: ‘They can be distinguished from the other elm feeding species, Cladius rufipes, by the presence of a black spot on the front of the face which is absent in rufipes.’ As you can clearly see in the photo above, this larva has that black spot, so meet Cladius ulmi, a sawfly species that feeds on elm, in this case Wych elm (Ulmus glabra).

231005 Cladius ulmi (2)

Euura pavida

13 Wednesday Sep 2023

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After last week’s heatwave (which kept me indoors a couple of days – I do NOT like the heat!), Monday’s walk was deliciously cool, if a little damp from un-forecast rain, and, even better, I found two new-to-me creatures. The first was a new species of sawfly larvae that I spotted when I saw this barely-there leaf. I’m always curious when I see leaves like this to find what has caused the damage.

230913 euura pavida (3)

It didn’t take long to find the culprits this time – at least 20, possibly more, hungry larvae munching the tough leaves of a willow species right down to their veins.

230913 euura pavida (2)

Previously known as Nematus pavidus, their species name has now changed to Euura pavida. The larvae are usually found chewing on willow leaves but can also be found on Alder and Poplar. You can see what the adult sawfly looks like on The Sawflies (Symphyta) of Britain and Ireland website.

230913 euura pavida (1)

Nematus septentrionalis

23 Wednesday Aug 2023

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The sawfly larvae are back!

You may remember my post last summer (Sawfly larvae on Birch, July 2022) about the black-spotted yellow-and-green larvae of the sawfly Nematus septentrionalis that were munching through the leaves of a local Birch sapling. Well, luckily, the sapling survived but it’s now providing a feast for this year’s brood of the same sawflies.

This time around I’ve found the larvae at a much earlier stage of development. And, destructive though they may be, they do look rather cute curled up in their individual holes in the leaves, and quite different in colour at this young age.

Plus, this time I spotted the eggs they emerged from – and some eggs yet to hatch, laid by the adult sawfly along the veins of the leaves.

I may sound a trifle over-enthusiastic about creatures that are basically eating a tree. But, last year, something ate most of the larvae before they consumed too many leaves and, as there are a good number of hungry Stonechats, Whitethroats, Green- and Goldfinches currently in this field, I think the sawfly larvae’s days are probably numbered.