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.
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.
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.
earthstar 
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