| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees and shrubs. On Betulaceae, Corylaceae, and Rosaceae; Betula spp. (f. betulae), Corylus, Crataegus, Cydonia (?), Malus, Mespilus (?), Prunus (?), Pyracantha (?), Sorbus, Pyrus (“on rosaceous trees and shrubs”, according to Bradley; but the list of genuine hosts needs checking from original sources).
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the upper-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; cremastal processes long and thin, or relatively short and basally broad (the inner pair thin and inwardly hooked, the stouter outer wider hased and outwardly hooked).
Adults. Face white. Head brown and fuscous. Thorax light chestnut brown; with a conspicuous median pale streak. Wing-span 8–9 mm. Forewings chestnut brown, or reddish ochreous; not clear shining white; with a well defined basal streak (this slender, bent downwards, traversing to near the middle of the wing and almost meeting the first fascia). The basal streak pale; markedly bent (downwards); not dark-edged above. Forewings with well defined pale strigulae (these slender, only the first pair white, the second pair being coloured but lighter than the background). Costal strigulae 2. Dorsal strigulae 2. Forewings with one transverse pale fascia (with the first pair of strigulae more or less meeting to form a slender, sharply angled fascia), or without transverse pale fasciae. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking to without conspicuous dark apical marks. Forewing apical marking comprising a whitish tornal dot and ante-apical strigula. The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia. The forewing basal fringe line confined to the apical region or fading dorsally. Hindwing cilia fuscous.
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (oblong). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex. The female genitalia exhibiting a signum on the bursa copulatrix (double pointed).
Adults abroad May and August.
General comments. This species is notable both for the unusually wide range of recorded food-plants (encompassing at least three quite unrelated plant families) as for its apparent taxonomic selectivity within the Rosaceae. Thus, although ranging widely in the family, its recorded hosts therein are confined to the subfamilies Pyroideae and Prunoideae, apparently to the exclusion of not only all the herbaceous forms, but also of such woody members as the ubiquitous Rosa and Rubus. However, host-plant details of this and the other species need checking from authoritative sources.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter corylifoliella: Jacobs (1945). • Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, with a range of food-plants. Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, with a few examples from its wide range of foodplants: Crataegus monogyna (Hawthorn, upper left), Prunus spinosa (Sloe, lower left), Malus sylvestris (Crab apple, lower right), and Betula (Birch, upper right). The plants from Curtis. • P. corylifoliella, P. coryli and P. quinnata (as carpinicolella): Stainton (1855) Plate II, under Lithocolletis. PHYLLONORYCTER. 1, P. corylifoliella: imago (1m), larva (1a) and two mined hawthorn leaves (1b). 2, L. coryli: imago (2m), larva (2a) and mined hazel leaf (2b). 3, P. quinnata: imago (3m), larva (3b) and mined hornbeam leaf (3b). • Stainton (1855), Plate II: original legend.. • P. corylifoliella (Hübner) and 5 other species: Hübner, 1796–1819. • Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, mine in Crataegus: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/.
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’.
