If you find a willow in midsummer with leaves being wantonly consumed by a horde of dark green worm-like things, you have just been introduced to the Willow Sawfly. This sawfly is common in Alberta. Although the damage seems alarming, healthy willows are only temporarily inconvenienced by the invasion.
The Willow Sawfly larva is dark green, almost black, with a yellow spot on each segment. Mature larvae are 20 to 24 mm (¾ to 1 in.) long. Sawfly larvae look like caterpillars (the larvae of moths and butterflies) but sawfly larvae have, other than the three pairs of true legs that both possess, six or more pairs of pseudolegs, whereas caterpillars have no more than 5 pairs.
The adult Willow Sawfly is a small dark wasp-like insect with long antennae. The female inserts eggs into willow leaves using her saw-like ovipositor.
Sawfly larvae, which are often unpalatable to birds tend to feed conspicuously and brazenly out in the open, chewing away in an obvious manner. Caterpillars (the larvae or moths and butterflies), on the other hand, are often quite tasty to birds and feed at night or feed concealed somehow in silken nests or curled leaves.
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PAUL FINKLEMAN
for serving as the society's ADOPT-A-PARK COORDINATOR this year