| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genus Phyllonorycter (Lepidoptera-Gracillariidae) |
Associated with trees. On Ulmaceae; Ulmus.
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 green).
Pupa. The pupal cremaster with two pairs of hooked processes; cremastal processes relatively short and basally broad.
Adults. Antennae black, white-tipped. Face leaden metallic grey. Head black. Thorax shining-metallic; silvery or leaden. Wing-span 6–8 mm. Forewings shining orange or golden orange, or brownish orange; not clear shining white; without a basal streak; with well defined pale strigulae (these silvery). Costal strigulae 3. Dorsal strigulae 3. Forewings with two transverse pale fasciae (via coalescence of the first two pairs). Forewings with a curved, black-edged silvery white streak from tornus to apex. The forewing fringe very faintly narrowly dark-lined along the bases of the cilia, or not dark-lined. Hindwing cilia light fuscous (darkened apically).
The left and right male genital valvae similar in size and form (slightly clavate). The left male genital valva not spine-tipped. The left and right male genital valvae seemingly having free costae (but hard to interpret). The left and right free costae completely detached from the valvae to arising near the bases of the valvae; if thus, similar. The aedeagus short and relatively stumpy, not barbed. The female genitalia with no signum (?).
Illustrations. • Phyllonorycter schreberella: Jacobs (1945). • Phyllonorycter schreberella: Ian Kimber (2018), UKmoths https://ukmoths.org.uk/. • Phyllonocycter species on Elm. 1, Phyllonorycter schreberella; 2, P. tristrigella. • P. schreberella (specimens): photo. Phyllonorycter schreberella. 1935, Surbiton, Surrey, mines from G.H. Heath. • P. stettinensis, P. schreberella and P. cf. rajella (as alnifolia): Stainton (1855) Plate V, under Lithocolletis. PHYLLONORYCTER. 1, P. stettinensis: imago (1m), larva (1a), and alder leaf with two mines (1b). 2, P. schreberella: imago (2m), larva (2a) and mined elm leaf (2b). 3, cf. P. rajella: imago (3m), larva (3a), and mined alder leaf (3b). • Stainton (1855), Plate V: original legend.. • Phyllonorycter schreberella, 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’.
