Athalia rosae
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
Athalia rosae, the turnip sawfly, cabbage leaf sawfly or beet sawfly, is a typical sawfly with dark green or blackish 18–25 mm long larvae that feed on plants of the brassica family, and can sometimes be a pest. It winters below the ground, emerging in early summer as a 7–8 mm adult with a mainly orange body and a black head. The adult feeds on nectar.
The turnip sawfly was found to result in diploid males and females after sister-brother matings. This differs from normal haplodiploid hymenoptera and after a further cross causing triploid males, resulted in evidence that sex determination is controlled by a single locus. The sawflies have been found to sequester glucosinolates like many insects in larval stages. Removal of various glucosinolates has been shown to reduce sensitivity to host plants in later adult stages. The fact that glucosinolates being removed causes reduced sensitivity to future possible host plants has been used to argue that these chemicals are important in specific larval patterning to future host plant options. Due to no current primitive Hymenoptera, the turnip sawfly is being worked on for genome sequencing. This effort will add to the planned i5K, the effort to sequence 5,000 insect genomes in 5 years. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wadden Sea National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 2 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 2 | Birmingham | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 3 | Kyiv | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | |
| 4 | Brussels | 🇧🇪 Belgium | |
| 5 | Warsaw | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 6 | Copenhagen | 🇩🇰 Denmark | |
| 7 | Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 8 | Cologne | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 9 | Rotterdam [The Hague] | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 10 | London | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Turnip Sawfly sighting in Brussels on a given day, based on 16 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 117th most-seen of the 337 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Turnip Sawfly in Brussels on a given day, against under 5% in November to June, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Turnip Sawfly sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Among the best
Of the 25 cities where we can rate Turnip Sawfly sightings, Brussels ranks 4th at about 10%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Helsinki (Finland, about 10%), Birmingham (United Kingdom, about 10%) and Kyiv (Ukraine, about 10%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Turnip Sawfly is recorded against all the insects logged in Brussels (16 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
