| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees. On Salicaceae; Populus (P. tremula).
Larvae. The larvae mining in leaves; in the under-side (oval, tentiform, with no fixed position on the leaf, yellowish, sometimes tinged with red, ultimately turning black). Found in June, or August to October. The larva not constructing a definite cocoon.
Pupa. The pupal cremaster not described.
Adults. Antennae white, banded grey. Thorax white and fuscous (only sparsely scattered fuscous). Wing-span 8.5–9.5 mm. Forewings white scattered with fuscous; not clear shining white; without a basal streak; with well defined pale strigulae to lacking well defined pale strigulae. Costal strigulae ill defined, 5. Dorsal strigulae ill defined, 3. Forewings with conspicuous dark apical marking. Forewing apical marking comprising a round blackish apical spot and comprising a dark apical strigula (with a line of dark fuscous scales to the apex). The forewing fringe narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia. The forewing basal fringe line complete. Hindwing cilia pale fuscous. Posterior tarsi whitish, without dark spots. The left and right male genital valvae with entire bodies.
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (distally narrowing from fairly broad bases). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped.
Adults abroad May, July and August.
General comments. Adventive; found in Fennoscandia, northern Russia to the Pyrenees, Italy and Romania, and (now) from Great Britain to southern Russia. For images cf. https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/phyllonorycter-sagitella/ and http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki.pl?Phyllonorycter_Sagitella. Genitalia: Gustafsson (2007): http://www2.nrm.se/en/svenska_fjarilar/svenska_fjarilar.html#DV.
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter sagitella: Agassiz (1980), Proc. Brit. Ent. Nat. Hist. Soc. 13–15.
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’.
