Urocerus gigas
Species of insect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Urocerus gigas, the giant woodwasp, banded horntail, or greater horntail, is a species of sawfly native to the Palearctic realm and North Africa but also reside in North America since 2004[1] Though they are not wasps, their appearance resembles one due to mimicry.[2] Adults are usually between 10 and 40 millimetres (1⁄2 and 1+1⁄2 inches) in length.[3]
| Urocerus gigas | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Female ovipositing | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Siricidae |
| Genus: | Urocerus |
| Species: | U. gigas |
| Binomial name | |
| Urocerus gigas | |
| Synonyms | |
- Urocerus gigas gigas
- Urocerus gigas taiganus
Urocerus gigas is a wood-boring insect that attacks softwoods of freshly felled logs/unhealthy trees. The species lives in discrete tunnels, frequently filled with hard-packed coarse fibrous frass, hard to dig out from tunnels. The tunnels are large, round and discrete, between 6 and 7 mm (1⁄4 and 9⁄32 in) in diameter. Both sexes have a chitinous spike emerging from the abdomen, derived from the last segment, which is found in all woodwasps.[2] However, unlike in true wasps, the projection is harmless and the insect cannot sting.
The second, longer and lower projection in females only is the ovipositor. The ovipositor has saw-like teeth which she uses to drill a hole, and then deposit her eggs, into wood.[2]
Urocerus flavicornis was once considered a subspecies of gigas but is now known to be a separate species.[4]
