| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
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 (this strong, white, silken).
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with two pairs of hooked processes; two pairs of cremastal processes very unequal in length (the inner pair very small); cremastal processes long and thin (the outer pair), or relatively short and basally broad (the tiny inner pair).
Adults. Face white. Head yellow. Thorax light golden brown, or yellow; without a median pale streak. Wing-span 7–9 mm. Forewings pale shining golden ochreous; not clear shining white; with a well defined basal streak (this reaching well beyond the middle). The basal streak pale; dark-edged above. Forewings with well defined pale strigulae. Costal strigulae 4; white. Dorsal strigulae 3, or 4. 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 (with an ill defined dark 'hook'); indistinctly narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia, or not dark-lined. Hindwing cilia fuscous. The left and right male genital valvae with the bodies deeply lobed (complexly so, apparently 3-lobed).
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (complex in form and hard to interpret). The left male genital valva with a shortly spine-tipped mid-costal-marginal lobe; (this and the right one) with a single mid-costal marginal spine. The left and right male genital valvae having free costae. The left and right free costae completely detached from the valvae; similar (these tiny, their spine-tips longer than the very short bases). The aedeagus long and relatively slender with a triangular barb towards the apex. The female genitalia exhibiting a signum on the bursa copulatrix (double pointed).
Adults abroad May and August.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter quercifoliella: Jacobs (1954). • Phyllonorycter quercifoliella: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonorycter quercifoliella, mine in deciduous oak: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • 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 quercifoliella, 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’.
