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Nature photography with photo gallery, glossary and more

Cecidology, the Science of Plant Galls

Plant galls, also known as cecidia, are among the most fascinating phenomena in nature. They arise through interactions between plants and gall wasps, gall midges, gall mites, aphids, cicadas, fungi, bacteria or nematodes and are remarkable for the astonishing variety of forms they can take.

Alongside a large photo gallery, you will find extensive information on the various gall inducers and their host plants, together with a continuously expanding glossary of specialist terms relating to plant galls, their inducers, and other areas of natural history.

The photo gallery contains several thousand photographs of plant galls, fungi, slime moulds, insects, spiders, butterflies, wild bees, beetles and many other animals and plants from the natural world around us.

The photo gallery also documents many other organisms from the natural world around us, including fungi, slime moulds, insects, spiders, butterflies, beetles, true bugs, wild bees and numerous other animal and plant species. Most of the photographs are taken under natural conditions and are intended to show both the diversity of species and the beauty of the natural world around us.

Whether you want to identify plant galls, are interested in gall wasps, gall midges or gall mites, or simply want to discover the diversity of nature, I hope you enjoy exploring my website.


Diplolepis nervosa
What Are Plant Galls?

Fascinating growths, swellings, anomalies and more.

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Andricus callidoma
What Do They Look Like?

Sometimes pouches, sometimes caps, balls or felt-like patches.

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Synergus gallaepomiformis
Who Else Lives There?

The gall inducer is not the only inhabitant.

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Although my main focus is on plant galls, my photo gallery also contains a wealth of images of other organisms found in nature. Before I began to devote myself more intensively to cecidology, my main interest was mycology, the science of fungi. Over the years, I was able to photograph many species from a wide variety of genera. During my excursions through fields, meadows, parks and forests, I eventually began to notice these conspicuous structures on the leaves of trees and shrubs, as well as on flowering plants and grasses. They were plant galls, and I wanted to know what was hidden behind them and inside them. My curiosity was aroused, and from then on I became interested in their inhabitants, such as gall wasps and gall midges. Since they belong to the insect kingdom, my interest in other groups of insects gradually grew as well. One thing led to another, and butterflies, true bugs, beetles and many other groups were added. From then on, I became interested in virtually everything I encountered in nature. I bought a good camera and have been photographing everything that comes in front of my lens ever since. That is why my Photo Gallery today contains not only images of plant galls, but also numerous photographs of a wide variety of organisms, with many more to come in the future. 
Fungi (Fungi) form the third major kingdom of eukaryotic organisms, alongside animals (Animalia) and plants (Plantae). Slime moulds (Mycetozoa or Eumycetozoa) are a taxon of unicellular organisms whose way of life combines characteristics of both animals and fungi, but which belong to neither group. Despite their name, they are therefore not fungi. My photo gallery contains many species of Basidiomycota and Ascomycota, as well as a number of photographs of slime moulds (Mycetozoa, Eumycetozoa). So take a look at the world of mycology.
Butterflies, beetles, birds, spiders, bees, wasps, hoverflies, bumblebees, flies, dragonflies and lacewings, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets, snails, lizards and snakes, amphibians, centipedes, millipedes and diplopods, woodlice, earwigs, lice, mites, ticks, cockroaches, true bugs, cicadas and psyllids. The gallery also contains many photographs of species belonging to these groups. I often spend a great deal of time and effort trying to photograph certain insects. Many macro photographs require a very steady hand and a good eye, as I take my pictures almost exclusively handheld and without a flash in order to portray the animals as naturally as possible. In most cases, setting up a tripod and other equipment, which would take several minutes, is not possible because the animals would usually be gone by then.
I hope you enjoy browsing through the photo gallery of a wide variety of organisms.