Larvae on Phellinus

[Langur]

Hi.

It's a couple of years I'm taking care of this Prunus domestica.

It's an old little tree with a lot of Phellinus on it.

Late in the winter a lot of these little larvae come out from the cracks and wounds in the wood and they seem to chill out on the fungus.

Does anyone know what they are?

Thanks

[Langur]

A few more pics

[David Humphries]

I think they are the larvae of a thrip (thunderfly) species

 

Imagine they are feeding on the spore of the Phellinus

 

Perhaps Hoplandrothrips brunneicornis

 

 

http://bugguide.net/node/view/71239#food

.

[Langur]

Thank you very much David!

 

I guess you 're right, as usual. :-)

 

What would you do? The tree is quite old and in decline. It has been pruned too hard a few years ago and now is slowly dying.

I think I'm gonna leave them.

 

Do you think they will move to another tree once this one is gone?

There are a lot of fruit trees in that yard. I don't know if they can affect a young and healthy tree.

[David Humphries]

I guess you 're right, as usual. :-) .

 

 

 

Wouldn't place your mortgage on it, I'm no Entomologist

 

 

Just a web search based on your fine images and a look through some lists of wood associated insect species from a couple of entomology reports we've had commissioned

 

 

Plenty of white rot in your prunus I'd imagine

 

I'd guess that once there habitat is gone, if they persist in the immediate locale, then they'll just search out the next available host.

 

.

[Langur]

Wouldn't place your mortgage on it, I'm no Entomologist

 

I won't.

 

Yup. A lot of white rot. Surely the tree isn't going through his best days but it's an old small one and even if it falls , it will cause no damage to anything nor anyone. Plus it still gives delicious plums every year so...nature will think about it.

 

A couple of pics of the rot.

[Langur]

I did some more research on the web based on your link and I guess those ones are tube-tailed thrips.

The red one is the larva, the black one is the adult.

[jwade]

Those webs look like something have seen here in the UK before, a fungus gnat Sciophila pomonae, which produces curious webbing with holes on Phellinus pomaceus. This fungus clearly has a few associates with it!

 

ref my post: http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/ecology/49772-hamadryad-trees-ecology-fungi-22.html#post940187

[Langur]

Nice find. Really interesting.

[David Humphries]

Those webs look like something have seen here in the UK before, a fungus gnat Sciophila pomonae, which produces curious webbing with holes on Phellinus pomaceus. This fungus clearly has a few associates with it!

 

Both yours and Langurs posts inspired me to look back through my own Phellinus files and I've also seen the webs on this species, but not the insects that were associated with them.

 

I'll take a closer look next time I come across the situation.

 

 

.