| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with herbs. On Leguminosae; Ononis and Trifolium.
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 (But this loose).
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with two pairs of hooked processes; two pairs of cremastal processes more or less equal in length; cremastal processes long and thin.
Adults. Face metallic silvery. Head dark sepia brown. Thorax shining golden saffron yellow, or orange, or brown; with a conspicuous median pale streak. Wing-span 5–7 mm. Forewings golden ochreous, or golden orange; not clear shining white; with a well defined basal streak (this straight, traversing about a third of the wing). The basal streak pale; dark-edged above. Forewings with well defined pale strigulae (silvery white). Costal strigulae 4. Dorsal strigulae 3. Forewings with the first costal strigula not forming an acute angle with a dorsal one; with one transverse pale fascia (via coalescence of the first pair of strigulae, which are unrecognisable as discrete entities). The fascia only slightly bent. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking, or without conspicuous dark apical marks. Forewing apical marking if detectable, comprising a round blackish apical spot. The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia. The forewing basal fringe line complete to confined to the apical region or fading dorsally (by the second dorsal strigula). Hindwing cilia light fuscous fuscous.
The left and right male genital valvae very dissimilar (more or less ovate, the right broader). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped; without marginal spines. The left and right male genital valvae without free costae. 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 insignitella: Jacobs (1945). • Phyllonorycter insignitella,with food-plants. Phyllonorycter insignitella: usually on Ononis repens (Rest Harrow, right), but sometimes on Trifolium spp. The latter exemplified by T. arvense (Hare's Foot Clover, left) and T. ochroleucon (Sulphur Clover, centre). The plants from Curtis. • Phyllonorycter insignitella, 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’.
