| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees. On Betulaceae; Alnus.
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the under-side. Found in July, or September to November.
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with one pair of hooked processes, or with two pairs of hooked processes; two pairs of cremastal processes if two pairs detectable, very unequal in length (the inner pair absent or much reduced); cremastal processes relatively short and basally broad.
Adults. Face coloured (brassy). Head orange. Thorax golden brown, or yellow; shining-metallic; brassy. Wing-span 9–10 mm. Forewings shining orange tinged golden ochreous, or brownish orange to golden brown; not clear shining white; without a basal streak; with well defined pale strigulae (these quite brassy). Costal strigulae 4. The ground colour darkening gradually towards the inner edges of the pale fasciae and strigulae. Dorsal strigulae 4. Forewings with two transverse pale fasciae (via coalescence of the first two pairs of strigulae, which are indistinguishable as discrete entities); with two costal spots beyond the second fascia, or with three costal spots beyond the second fascia (the first two conspicuous and ochreous-tinged, the third if present, obscure). Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking, or without conspicuous dark apical marks. Forewing apical marking if detectable, comprising an elongate blackish apical spot. 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 similar in size and form. The left male genital valva not spine-tipped (but having a pair of straight spines from near the tip). The left and right male genital valvae rather inconspicuously having free costae to without free costae. The left and right free costae similar (very short, spineless, at the valve bases). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex. The female genitalia with no signum.
Adults abroad May and August.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter froelichiella: Jacobs (1945). • Phyllonorycter species on Alder. 1, Phyllonorycter strigulatella; 2, P. stettinensis; 3, P. froelichiella; 4, P. kleemannella. Representation of the foodplant (Alder, Alnus glutinosa) from Sowerby and Johnson. • Phyllonorycter froelichiella: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter froelichiella, mines in Alnus: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycer froelichiella, 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’.
