| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Synonyms: Phyllonorycter cramerella (Fabricius), Phyllonorycter tenella (Duponchel)
Associated with trees. On Fagaceae; native (deciduous) Quercus.
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the under-side. Found in July, or September to October.
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with one pair of hooked processes; cremastal processes relatively short and basally broad ('the pair having their bases joined by a concave margin').
Adults. Antennae white to the base (becoming greyish distally). Face white. Head white (or greyish), or fuscous (or dusky). Thorax and tegulae white. Wing-span 7–10 mm. Forewings white (-ish, towards the base), or golden ochreous (tinged, at least towards their tips), or fuscous (sometimes pale ochreous grey); not clear shining white (plain from the base to beyond the middle); lacking the oblique golden brown fascia from the base of the costa exhibited by P. roboris; suffused throughout with fuscous, or not suffused throughout with fuscous; without a basal streak; lacking well defined pale strigulae (uninterpretable in the usual terms, but with three costal and two dorsal narrow white streaks inwardly edged brown). Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking. Forewing apical marking comprising a round blackish apical spot. The forewing fringe traversed towards the apex by a narrow, curved dark line to not traversed by a dark line (then with only an ill defined dark 'hook'); narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia. The forewing basal fringe line complete. Hindwing cilia white (on the costa), or fuscous. Posterior tarsi with dark spots (whitish, banded greyish-fuscous). The left and right male genital valvae hard to interpret, but seemingly with the bodies deeply lobed (the anterior lobes much narrower).
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form. The left male genital valva not spine-tipped. The left and right male genital valvae having free costae to without free costae. The left and right free costae arising near the bases of the valvae (borne near the bases of the narrow, anterior lobes); similar (quite long, with straight spine-tips). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex. The female genitalia exhibiting a signum on the bursa copulatrix (as an irregular, dentate ridge).
Adults abroad May and August.
General comments. The peculiarly indistinct forewing markings rendering the descriptive terms “strigulae” and transverse “fasciae” scarcely interpretable in the usual manner. Illustrations. Abbreviated taxon name: harrisel.
• Phyllonorycter harrisella (as P. cramerella): Jacobs (1945). • 9 species on deciduous oak. 1, Phyllonorycter (Lithocolletis) roboris; 2, P. harrisella; 3, P. heegeriella; 4, P. messaniella; 5, P. quercifoliella; 6, P. distentella; 7, P. lautella; 8, P. muelleriella; 9, P. kuhlweiniella. • Phyllonorycter harrisella: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter harrisella (as cramerella), 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’.
