| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Synonym: Phyllonorycter faginella (Zeller)
Associated with trees. On Fagaceae; Fagus sylvatica.
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 (the outer stouter).
Adults. Face white. Head fuscous. Thorax light golden brown, or fuscous; with a conspicuous median pale streak. Wing-span 7–9 mm. Forewings pale golden ochreous (darkening before the strigulae); not clear shining white; with a well defined basal streak (this fairly straight, to near the middle). The basal streak pale; dark-edged above to not dark-edged above. Forewings with well defined pale strigulae (these rather dull white). Costal strigulae 4. Dorsal strigulae 3. Forewings with the first costal strigula approaching a dorsal one at an acute angle; with one transverse pale fascia (the third costal strigula perhaps meeting the third dorsal), or without transverse pale fasciae. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking. Forewing apical marking comprising an elongate blackish apical spot, or comprising a dark apical strigula. The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the tips of the apical cilia, or not dark-lined. The forewing basal fringe line when detectable, confined to the apical region or fading dorsally. Hindwing cilia pale fuscous. Posterior tarsi whitish, without dark spots.
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (narrowly elongate, broadening distally, blunt-tipped). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped. The left and right male genital valvae having free costae. The left and right free costae more or less completely detached from the valvae; similar (fairly long based, with long 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 (but minute).
Adults abroad May and August.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter maestingella (as P. faginella): Jacobs (1945). • P. maestingella with food-plant. Phyllonorycter maestingella. Details of the food-plant (Beech, Fagus sylvatica) from Lindley. • P. mespilella (as torminella), P. spinicolella and P. maestingella (as faginella): Stainton (1855) Plate III, under Lithocolletis. PHYLLONORYCTER. 1, P. mespilella: imago (1m), larva (1a), and mined leaf of Sorbus torminalis (1b). 2, P. spinicolella: imago (2m), larva (2a), and mined sloe leaf (2b). 3, P. maestingella: imago (3m), larva (3a), and mined beech leaf (3b). • Stainton (1855), Plate III: original legend. • Phyllonorycter maestingella: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter maestingella, mine in beech: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter maestingella (as faginella), 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’.
