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Tag Archives: leafmines on Evergreen oak

Leafmines: on Himalayan honeysuckle

10 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects, plants

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Tags

Chromatomyia lonicerae, Himalayan honeysuckle, leaf-mining fly larvae, leaf-mining moth larvae, leafmines on Evergreen oak, leafmines on Himalayan honeysuckle, Leycesteria formosa, Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella

Two for the price of one this week. The plant is Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa), not a British native as you can guess from its name, but a plant that’s now naturalised quite extensively in the wild, at least in my local area. The leafmines were found on 18 December, quite late in the year but a sign of how mild our weather has been so far this winter.

220110 Leycesteria formosa (1)
220110 Leycesteria formosa (2)

These first mines were made by the larvae of the tiny fly Chromatomyia lonicerae. I like the description of this mine on the Nature Spot website: ‘The leafmine starts with an irregular star-like blotch with a later linear section’. You can see that in my photo on the left below, and, in the photo on the right, you can see a pupa, which remains in the mine until it emerges as an adult fly.

220110 Chromatomyia lonicerae (1)
220110 Chromatomyia lonicerae (2)

This second mine is the creation of the larva of the moth Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella, a beautiful little brown-and-white creature that you can see on the UK Moths website. The larva spins itself a blotch mine, which pulls the underside of the leaf together, as you can see in the photos below: top of the leaf on the left, bottom on the right.

220110 Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella (1)
220110 Phyllonorycter emberizaepenella (2)

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53/366 A new leafmine

22 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Tags

British moths, Ectoedemia heringella, Evergreen oak, leafminer, leafmines on Evergreen oak, moth leafmines

I was a woman on a mission today, and these are what I was looking for. They are the leafmines of the larvae of the moth Ectoedemia heringella, found on Evergreen Oak.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (1)

You’ve probably never heard of this moth and neither had I, until yesterday, when I read a tweet by George Tordoff, Senior Moth Ecologist with Butterfly Conservation here in Wales, that he had found its leafmines on an oak at Barry Island. His find was only the third record for the county of Glamorgan – the first two were found by County Moth Recorder Dave Slade, in Cardiff’s Bute Park. It made sense that the mines might also be found in locations between Cardiff and Barry, so today I went looking and found them on every Evergreen oak in Penarth’s Windsor Gardens. And my fellow Penarthian, Gareth, also went looking today and found several mines on the trees at nearby St Mary’s Well Bay. Success!

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (2)
200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (3)

According to the UK Moths website, Ectoedemia heringella only arrived in Britain (in Greater London) from Europe in 1996 and has slowly been spreading out from there. The adult moths don’t appear until mid summer, and I may never see one, but at least now our records can help track their spread across the country.

200222 ectoedemia heringella leafmines (4)

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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