The pear slug or cherry slug is the

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. Th ...

of the

sawfly Sawflies are the insects of the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera, alongside ants, bees, and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they l ...

, ''Caliroa cerasi'', a nearly worldwide pest. The species was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. They are not slugs but are a kind of

of the family

Tenthredinidae Tenthredinidae is the largest family of sawflies, with well over 7,500 species worldwide, divided into 430 genera. Larvae are herbivores and typically feed on the foliage of trees and shrubs, with occasional exceptions that are leaf miners, stem ...

. The pear slug is an important pest that eats leaves of cherry, pear, and plum trees, leaving behind a skeleton of veins. The larvae cover themselves in green slime, making themselves unpalatable to predators. The larva molt between five to eight times before being fully grown. When the larvae are fully grown, they drop from the tree to the ground and

pupa A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

te underground. The adult sawfly emerges from the pupal case and climbs from the soil to mate and lays eggs on the leaves of the

host plant In biology and medicine, a host is a larger organism that harbours a smaller organism; whether a parasitic, a mutualistic, or a commensalist ''guest'' (symbiont). The guest is typically provided with nourishment and shelter. Examples include a ...

, completing the

life cycle Life cycle, life-cycle, or lifecycle may refer to: Science and academia * Biological life cycle, the sequence of life stages that an organism undergoes from birth to reproduction ending with the production of the offspring * Life-cycle hypothesi ...

. Other sources dispute the notion that the females climb the tree to lay their eggs, claiming instead that they fly to the tree. This is an important detail in regard to their control in horticultural circumstances where glues are used to control climbing pests.

References

External links

Australian Insects
*
Itis classificationThe sawflies (Symphyta) of Britain and Ireland
* * Tenthredinidae Sawflies described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Sawfly-stub