During the third episode of Season 3, Micaela told the story about the weird balls scattered on the walking trail near her house. What she initially thought might be some kind of fruit turned out to be a wondrous and terrifying bit of nature: wasp galls.
Check out these photos Micaela took of some wasp galls she found!
You know someone made a euphemism for the all too obvious “wasp balls” name that these spheres so blatantly warrant.
These bulbous protrusions are most often found on Oak trees and happen when a wasp and a branch get together in a symbiotic kinda way. The wasp inserts her eggs into the flesh of the tree which causes the area to swell. The tree protects the wasp eggs and provides a safe place to grow.
Although the tree doesn’t get much out of this arrangement it doesn’t suffer any negative effects. Eventually, the gall plops off the tree. The matured wasp will exit the gall at some point, but be careful, they might still be in there even if it’s not attached to the tree.
Based on where these were found and the shape of the galls Micaela found, we think it was probably the Andricus californicus wasp.
The Blunt Letters Podcast 