Sawfly on hogweed
Tenthredo sp.
Sawfly · The Cotswolds · 12 June 2025
A sawfly on hogweed in a Cotswold meadow in June, yellow and black like a wasp. Sawflies are insects of hedgerow and meadow across Europe, and the adults spend the summer on umbellifer flowers like this one, feeding on pollen and smaller insects.
It is without the pinched waist that separates true wasps from their relatives. The thick, uninterrupted join between thorax and abdomen marks it as a sawfly, a group whose larvae feed on plants rather than prey. The size and the banding put it in Tenthredo, the largest of the sawfly genera; the species within it need the pattern on the legs and antennae. The name is the female's egg-laying tool, a serrated blade she saws into a leaf or stem.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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