Snowed In

Today it snowed, from the morning to early afternoon. And the time I'd allowed for a walk was needed for shoveling. So no outdoors photo for today. To make up for it, I decided to open up a goldenrod gall gathered from the prairie during a walk a few days ago. Inside I found a flaccid, unfreezable little blob. Not much to look at, and yet this nondescript larva is part of a remarkable life cycle. It weathers winter inside its vegetable capsule, not unlike us humans inside our wooden houses, except the gall fly larva doesn't have central heating. It survives by removing water from its body and by producing the antifreeze glycerol.

At some point, late winter or early spring, the larva will pupate and the adult fly will emerge a few weeks after, just as the goldenrod begins to grow in late spring.

Posted on January 11, 2017 04:44 AM by scottking