About Saperda populnea (Linnaeus, 1758)
Adult Saperda populnea beetles are active from May to July. After cutting a horseshoe-shaped incision into plant tissue, the female lays an egg inside the cut. A gall develops as a symmetrical swelling on an internode, reaching up to 20 millimeters in length, and holds a single yellowish larva or pupa within one elongated chamber. The adult beetle creates an exit hole through the gall the following spring. This species is most commonly found on aspen (Populus tremula), and has also been recorded on black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), black poplar (Populus nigra), and goat willow (Salix caprea). In Britain, galls of this species are most often found on young aspen twigs. Saperda populnea has been recorded in Albania, Algeria, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic (Bohemia, Moravia), France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Morocco, Mexico, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sardinia, Serbia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
