Hasegawaia sasacola (English spelling)

Japanese: ササウオタマバエ(笹魚玉蠅) - ササウオタマバエ（英語表記）Hasegawaia sasacola

An insect of the Diptera family, Cecidomyiidae. The larvae create galls resembling bamboo shoots, 4-40 cm long, on the lateral shoots of bamboo grass. These galls have been known as sasauo since the Edo period. There is a legend that sasauo fall into streams of their own accord and become iwana, and this can be found in Tachibana Nankei's Azumayuki and Kimura Kenkadō's Kenkadō Zatsuroku (1856). Hasegawa Tadataka had doubts about this legend, and after examining its structure and finding that it has no bones or meat and does not give off a fishy smell when grilled, he wrote in Hishū-shi (around 1745) that "this must be a bamboo disease."

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

双翅目タマバエ科の昆虫。幼虫はササの側芽に長さ4～40cmのタケノコに似た虫えいをつくる。この虫えいは江戸時代から笹魚として知られている。笹魚には，ひとりでに谷川に落ちてイワナになるという伝説があり，橘南谿の《東遊記》や木村蒹葭堂の《蒹葭堂雑録》(1856)などにその記述が見られる。また長谷川忠崇はこの伝説に疑問をもち，その構造を調べ，骨も肉もなく焼いても魚の臭気のないことを確かめて〈是れ竹の病ならん〉と《飛州志》(1745ころ)の中に記している。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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