Rabdophaga Westwood, 1847

Fjellberg, Arne & Fedotova, Zoya, 2024, New records of gall midges (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae) from Norway, Norwegian Journal of Entomology 71, pp. 8-94 : 80

Genus Rabdophaga Westwood, 1847

The genus includes 77 species from the Holarctic region. All species except two are associated with Salix ( Salicaceae ). Most species form galls in the stems, shoots or buds of the host plant. Some live as inquilines in the galls of other species of Rabdophaga . We have collected and reared Rabdophaga from a wide variety of galls from a range of Salix species. Unfortunately, most of this material has not yet been identified, and the task is made difficult by the large number of candidate species. Only a few specimens have so far been attempted barcoded, and barcoding failed for all of them. For this reason, only four species of Rabdophaga are reported in this paper. Large rosette galls found on a variety of Salix species are generally believed to belong to Rabdophaga rosaria (Loew, 1850) . Whether R. rosaria truly is a single species or a complex of species remains to be properly investigated. The galls of R. rosaria are also home to many inquilines belonging to both Rabdophaga and other midge genera. The host larva occupies a chamber centrally in the rosette, while the inquilines live either between the leaves in the periphery of the rosette, or inside the wooden substance at its base. In the following, we have treated all larger rosette galls from various species of Salix as belonging to Rabdophaga rosaria , provided we were able to secure the primary galler from the central chamber. From the same galls we have also obtained numerous inquilines. These are not reported at this time but have been kept for further study.