page_title: Tenthredinidae
section_title: Life cycle Cladius difformis
hierarchical_section_title: Tenthredinidae / Life cycle Cladius difformis
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Пилильщик зеленый. Rhogogaster viridis.
context_page_description: Tenthredinidae is the largest family of sawflies, with well over 7,500 species worldwide, divided into 430 genera. Larvae are herbivores and typically feed on the foliage of trees and shrubs, with occasional exceptions that are leaf miners, stem borers, or gall makers. The larvae of externally feeding species resemble small caterpillars. As with all hymenopterans, common sawflies undergo complete metamorphosis.
  The family has no easily seen diagnostic features, though the combination of five to nine antennal flagellomeres plus a clear separation of the first abdominal tergum from the metapleuron can reliably separate them. These sawflies are often black or brown, and 3 to 20 mm long. Like other sawflies, they lack the slender "wasp-waist", or petiole, between the thorax and abdomen, characteristic of many hymenopterans. The mesosoma and the metasoma are instead broadly joined. The Tenthredinidae are also often somewhat dorsoventrally flattened, which will distinguish them at least from the slender cephids.
  Females use their saw-like ovipositors to cut slits through barks of twigs, into which translucent eggs are wedged, which damages the trees.
caption: Rhogogaster viridis
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