Feron pattersonae

{{Short description|Species of wasp}}

{{Speciesbox

| image = Andricus pattersonae on blue oak.jpg

| image_alt = Two leaves on a tree, the undersides covered with overlapping yellow and green Andricus pattersonae galls

| image_caption = Galls formed by the all-female generation of Feron pattersonae on oak leaves

| genus = Feron

| species = pattersonae

| authority = Fullaway, 1911

| synonyms = *Liodora pattersonae

• Andricus pattersonae
• Andricus pedicellatus

}}

Feron pattersonae, also known as the plate gall wasp, is a species of oak gall wasp in the genus Feron.{{Cite web |title=Species Andricus pattersonae - Plate Gall Wasp |url=https://bugguide.net/node/view/145070 |access-date=2022-10-08 |website=bugguide.net}}{{Cite journal |last1=Cuesta-Porta |first1=Victor |last2=Melika |first2=George |last3=Nicholls |first3=James A. |last4=Stone |first4=Graham N. |last5=Pujade-Villar |first5=Juli |date=2023-11-07 |title=Re-establishment of the Nearctic oak cynipid gall wasp genus Feron Kinsey, 1937 (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae: Cynipini), including the description of six new species |url=https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5366.1.1 |journal=Zootaxa |volume=5366 |issue=1 |pages=1–174 |doi=10.11646/zootaxa.5366.1.1 |pmid=38220731 |issn=1175-5334|hdl=20.500.11820/8d7cf66b-8011-4572-b520-b8f5d78deae2 |s2cid=265191343 |hdl-access=free }} Their hosts are among the white oaks grouping of oaks, with blue oak being common.{{Cite book |last=Russo |first=Ronald A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1239984577 |title=Plant galls of the Western United States |date=2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-21340-8 |location=Princeton, New Jersey |pages=290–291 |language=en |oclc=1239984577}}{{Cite book |last1=McCracken |first1=Mary Isabel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jn5OAAAAMAAJ&dq=Andricus+pattersonae&pg=PA26 |title=California Gall-making Cynipidae: With Descriptions of New Species |last2=Egbert |first2=Dorothy Barnes |date=1922 |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=26–27 |language=en}}

File:Feron pattersonae spring gall.jpg

Like most oak gall wasps, the plate gall wasp has two alternating generations a year: a parthenogenic all-female generation, and a bisexual generation. The all-female generation produces galls in summer that are flat and circular with scalloped edges. Attached to the underside of leaves, these galls are initially green, then yellow, and fade to brown. They are 7–9 mm in diameter and have a single larval chamber.

The bisexual generation's galls were thought by scientist Alfred Kinsey in 1922 to belong to a new species, Andricus pedicellatus. These galls consist of a pointed capsule at the end of a hair-like stem.{{Cite journal |last=Kinsey |first=Alfred C. |date=1922 |title=New Pacific Coast Cynipidae (Hymenoptera) |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2246/1962 |journal=Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History |volume=46 |pages=279–295|hdl=2246/1962 }}