| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees. On Salicaceae; Populus (P. alba and P. canescens).
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the under-side. Found in July, or September to October. The larva pupating in a morphologically distinct cocoon.
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with two pairs of hooked processes; two pairs of cremastal processes tiny more or less equal in length; cremastal processes relatively short and basally broad (but minute).
Adults. Face white. Head mixed white and fuscous. Thorax white and fuscous (sprinkled). Wing-span 7–8 mm. Forewings white to whitish, or fuscous; not clear shining white; suffused throughout with fuscous (and with darker bars); without a basal streak; lacking well defined pale strigulae (unreliably interpretable in the usual terms, in that the wing presents the appearance of four ill defined costal and three dorsal, dark strigulae on a lighter background); without transverse pale fasciae. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking to without conspicuous dark apical marks. Forewing apical marking if detectable, comprising an elongate blackish apical spot to comprising a dark apical strigula. The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia. The forewing basal fringe line complete.
The left and right male genital valvae very similar in size and form (narrowly ovate). The left male genital valva with a pair of short straight spines arising close to the apex. The left and right male genital valvae interpretable as having free costae. The left and right free costae similar (both very short and spineless). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex. The female genitalia with no signum.
Adults abroad in August, October to December, January to May (hibernating).
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter comparella: Jacobs (1945). • P. comparella and food-plant. Phyllonorycter comparella. Populus nigra (Black Poplar, represented by the male catkin at the right, and the male flower) and P. alba (White Poplar, more often) are given as food-plants. The less common Phyllonorycter sagitella is associated with Populus tremula (Aspen, represented by the female catkin on the left and the other details). Botanical illustrations from Lindley. • “Lithocelletis populifoliella”, cf. P. comparella; P. staintoniella; P. quinquenotella (North American): Stainton (1855), Plate VII. PHYLLONORYCTER. 1, cf. P. comparella: imago (1m), larva (1a) and mined poplar leaf (1b). 2, P. staintonella: imago (2m), larva (2a) and sprig of Genista pilosa, with two mined leaves (2b). 3, P. quinquenotella (a North American species): imago (3m), larva (3a) and mined stem of Genista sagittalis (3b). • Stainton (1855), Plate VII: original legend.. • Phyllonorycter comparella, mine in Populus canescens: B. Smart (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter comparella, genitalia,: Pierce and Metcalfe (1935).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
