Tags
British leaf mines, British sawflies, leaf mines on Oak, leafminers, Oak leafmines, Profenusa pygmaea, sawfly leafmines
Believe it or not, #LeafmineMonday is a thing on Twitter, and last Monday I read with interest this tweet, with photos, posted by Rob Edmunds (@leafminerman, one of the people behind the excellent British Leafmines website):
a sawfly mine which is fairly easy to find, made by Profenusa pygmaea. Look for brown blotches on Oak leaves but with a wriggling start as shown in the photo … Initial mines are whitish but then fade to brown.
Profenusa pygmaea is a species of sawfly – you can read more about it and see photos of the adult on the Sawflies of Britain and Ireland website. As I’m often to be found checking out Oak leaves and there were no records for this particular sawfly in my local area, of course I had to go looking, and I’ve now found these leafmines in two separate locations. I’m guessing it’s yet another under-recorded species so if you spot it in your area, do please record it.
Great blog. I should pay more attention to these leafmines, as there are so many out there made by different insects which can be identified by the patterns they make.
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Thanks, and, yes, they’re definitely worth a closer look. Just yesterday I had confirmation that I’d found fly mines of a species that is new to Wales! That will feature in next Monday’s blog. 🙂
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Congratulations!
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Thanks! 🙂
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Who knew Leafmine Monday was a thing! Amazing!
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Every Monday I learn something new about leafmines. 🙂
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