Galls of the Soldier-producing Aphid Ceratoglyphina bambusae Broken by Vertebrates (Homoptera, Aphidoidea)

Soldiers of the Taiwanese aphid Ceratoglyphina bambusae readily fall off its large gall when one shakes the gall, and, if they fall on one's hand or neck, they bite the skin and cause troublesome irritation. AOKI et al. (1977) proposed the hypothesis that gall predation by arboreal mammals has caused the evolution of this peculiar behavior, but they did not present any evidence for such predation. We found some galls which had presumably been broken by non-human vertebrates in central Taiwan. We also report a case where a large wound in a gall was cured.