| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees. On Platanaceae; Platanus.
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the under-side (alongside lateral veins).
Adults. Antennae pale, brown-ringed. Thorax brown; without a median pale streak. Wing-span 8–10 mm. Forewings golden brown, or brown; not clear shining white; lacking the oblique golden brown fascia from the base of the costa exhibited by P. roboris; not suffused throughout with fuscous; with a well defined basal streak. The basal streak blue, blue-ish or pale; straight, neither markedly long and slender nor sinuate (slightly curved); below and dark-edged above. Forewings with well defined pale strigulae, or lacking well defined pale strigulae (sometimes dark blue). Costal strigulae 4; white (or blue, or blue-ish). The first costal strigula extended basipetally along the costa. The fasciae and strigulae inwardly sharply dark-edged. The first costal strigula dark-margined posteriorly. Dorsal strigulae 4. Forewings with the first costal strigula approaching a dorsal one at an acute angle; with one transverse pale fascia, or with two transverse pale fasciae. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking. Forewing apical marking comprising a round blackish apical spot. Hindwing cilia more or less white. The left and right male genital valvae with entire bodies.
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (oblong-elongate). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped. The left and right male genital valvae having free costae. The left and right free costae completely detached from the valvae; similar (broadly based and spine-tipped, about a third as long as their valvae). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex.
General comments. Adventive, first recorded in 1990 from London. Widespread in Continental Europe, Near East, Palearctic and California. Genitalia: Gustafsson (2007): http://www2.nrm.se/en/svenska_fjarilar/svenska_fjarilar.html#DV.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter platani: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/.
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’.
