Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Animated Cotton Wool





Turn over an alder leaf at this time of year and you may find what look like small lumps of cotton wool stuck to the leaf blade and leaf stalk. Watch for a while and they move around. They’re insects – the nymphal stage of alder psyllids Psylla alni, which feed on the sap of the plant. The source of the ‘cotton wool’, which is really a mass of waxy filaments secreted by the insect, becomes apparent when these aphid-sized insects are examined under the microscope. The wax is produced by glands at the tail, so a psyllid that’s just begun to produce this material looks like its tail is on fire. The wax is a defence against water loss and predators. The nymphs have stubby wing primordia that eventually develop into fully-formed wings, by which time they will have shed their ‘cotton wool’ covering, ready to take flight and disperse. Psyllids are commonly known as jumping plant lice and different species tend to be associated with specific plant hosts. The alder psyllid is one of the larger species in the UK.

4 comments:

  1. Another fascinating description accompanied by great close shots of the subject.

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  2. Wonderful stuff! How on earth did you find out about it all? Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I find it fascinating.

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  3. Hi John, Thank you for your kind comments. It was lucky that one of the psyllids on the leaf had only just begun to secrete wax, otherwise all the pictures would hav shown would have been balls of white fluff!

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  4. Thanks Toffeeapple, I've worked as a biologist for 35 years but one of the pleasues of studying nature is that you never run out of unfamiliar territory to explore. I'd never looked at these little insects under a microscope until this week.

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