Sirex juvencus

Common wood wasp ( Sirex juvencus ) ♀

The common wood wasp ( Sirex juvencus ), or also called pine wood wasp, is a world- known representative of the family of wood wasps.

Distribution and habitat

The common wood wasp comes in Europe, Japan, Australia, North America before (up to Labrador and Newfoundland ). It occurs mainly in pine forests before, rarely also in spruce stands.

Description

The common wood wasp is 15 to 30 millimeters in size. Your body is blue-black. With the sensors of the females are, apart from the base member, rust-colored, the first five members, the following ten blackish. The males have a red - gold ring on the abdomen.

Reproduction

The females looking to lay eggs a freshly precipitated, sick or injured tree on. Dried or wood used is not used. With the help of her ovipositor to lay 8-10 eggs under the bark, together with spores of the fungus Braunfilzigen layer ( Amylostereum areolatum ). Total production includes several hundred eggs. The larvae are white and eyeless. They have stubby legs to the chest, but no belly feet. They feed on the mycelium of the fungus and drilling programs in the wood, which they replenish later with sawdust. This insect holes can be up to 40 centimeters long and have a diameter of 4-7 mm. Pupation it tight dig a small chamber under the bark, the so-called " Puppenwiege ". The exit holes of the hatching wasps have a diameter 4-10 mm. The development takes three to six years.

Food

The food of the larvae in the feeding programs consists of the many fungal hyphae to white rot degraded wood.

Economic damage

The damage caused is relatively low, as strongly infested wood is sorted during processing and already dried wood is not used for oviposition.

However, it may happen that hatching wasps gnaw through overlying materials (carpets, linoleum and even roofing felt ) and thereby cause damage.