Spitfire sawfly
Its babies look like dark, bristly caterpillars that cuddle together in big bunches on gum tree branches. If you bother them, they lift their heads and spit out a smelly yellow green goo.
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Fun facts
The babies spit out gum tree oil from the leaves they ate, and that gives them the name spitfires.
In the daytime the babies huddle together in groups of 20 to 30, and at night they spread out to eat.
The babies grow up to 8 centimetres long, much bigger than the grown-up sawfly.
It is called a sawfly because the mother has a little saw on her back end to cut into leaves and lay her eggs.
It can stay in its paper-like cocoon in the soil for two or three years before coming out.
Most asked questions about Spitfire sawfly
?Are spitfires caterpillars?
Not quite. They look like caterpillars but are the babies of sawflies, which are relatives of wasps.
?What do spitfire larvae eat?
They eat the leaves of gum trees, mostly at night.
Myth buster
Myth: Spitfires are caterpillars.
Truth: No. They look like caterpillars, but they are the babies of a sawfly. Sawflies are relatives of wasps, not butterflies.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Perga affinis
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Pergidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Pergidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Spitfire sawfly (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Tzedragon. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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