| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Synonyms: Phyllonorycter hortella (Fabricius), Phyllonorycter saportella (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. The larva pupating in a morphologically distinct cocoon.
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with two pairs of hooked processes; two pairs of cremastal processes more or less equal in length; cremastal processes relatively short and basally broad.
Adults. Antennae white to the base. Face shining white. Head white. Collar fuscous. Thorax white (with a transverse band of dark browntowards the anterior); without a median pale streak. Wing-span 7–9 mm. Forewings shining white; clear shining white with coloured markings; exhibiting conspicuous transverse dark (black-edged, ochreous) fasciae (three of them); without a basal streak; with well defined pale strigulae to lacking well defined pale strigulae (the wing uninterpretable in the usual terms, giving the appearance of having five costal and three dorsal, yellow strigulae on a white background). The last fascia angulated. The antemedian fascia bluntly angulated. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking. Forewing apical marking a pale-centred dark spot. The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia and narrowly dark-lined along the tips of the apical cilia (i.e., exhibiting a 'type 2 apical hook'). The forewing basal fringe line confined to the apical region or fading dorsally. The left and right male genital valvae with entire bodies.
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (narrowly elongate, the apices rounded). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped (but having two curved costal-margin spines, one near the middle and the other near the apex); (this and the right one) with a spine around the mid-costal margin and another near the apex. 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 exhibiting a signum on the bursa copulatrix (small, pointed at either end).
Adults abroad May and August.
Illustrations. • 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 kuhlweiniella (as hortella), 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’.
