''Urocerus gigas'' (giant woodwasp, banded horntail, greater horntail) is a species of
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 lay ...
native to the
Palearctic realm
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...
and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. Adults are usually between in length.
Subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
:
*''U. gigas gigas''
*''U. gigas taiganus''
''U. gigas'' is a wood-boring insect that attacks softwoods of freshly felled logs/unhealthy trees. The species lives in discrete tunnels, frequently filled with hard-packed coarse fibrous frass, hard to dig out from tunnels. The tunnels are large, round and discrete, between in diameter.
''
Urocerus flavicornis'' was once considered a subspecies of ''gigas'' but is now known to be a separate specie
References
Siricidae
Insects described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
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