ARABIS. Rock-cresses. [Brassicaceae]

Eleven species of Arabis are recorded in Britain. Five of these are native species. Arabis arenosa is treated as Arabidopsis arenosa and Arabis glabra is treated as Turritis glabra by Stace (2010).

No Diptera miners are recorded on Arabis in Britain.

Elsewhere the agromyzids Chromatomyia horticola, Liriomyza bryoniae and Liriomyza strigata and the polyphagous drosophilid Scaptomyza flava are recorded mining Arabis.

No non-Diptera miners are recorded on Arabis in Britain.

Elsewhere one British non-Diptera miner, Ceutorhynchus minutus, is recorded on Arabis (see below).

A key to the European miners, based on characteristics of the mines, immature stages and where relevant the larval cases, recorded on Arabis is provided in Bladmineerders van Europa. This includes the moths Plutella xylostella, Cnephasia asseclana, Phyllotreta nemorum and Xenostrongylus lateralis, the beetle Ceutorhynchus minutus and the flies Chromatomyia horticola, Scaptomyza flava, Liriomyza xanthocera and Liriomyza bryoniae.

Key for the identification of the mines of British non-Diptera recorded on
Arabis

Note: The larvae of mining Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera may live in a corridor mine, a corridor-blotch mine, a blotch mine, a case, a rolled or folded leaf, a tentiform mine or sandwiched between two more or less circular leaf sections in later instars. Larva may pupate in a silk cocoon. The larva may have at least six legs (although they may be reduced or absent), a head capsule and chewing mouthparts with opposable mandibles (see video of a gracillarid larva feeding). Larvae of Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera usually also have abdominal legs (see examples). Frass, if present, never in two rows. Unless feeding externally from within a case the larva usually vacates the mine by chewing an exit hole. Pupa with visible head appendages, wings and legs which lie in sheaths (see examples).

1 > Leaf-miner: Rather small, untidy, full depth, often branched corridor, often close to the leaf margin. Sides irregularly eaten out. Frass in a greyish-green central line that is interrupted from time to time, sometimes partly in strings. In times of rain the frass may run out and appear greenish. Usually several mines in a leaf (Bladmineerders van Europa). The legless larva is rather shapeless, with a well-sclerotised head. The body is whitish; head greyish brown with Y-shaped lighter marking. Pronotum with a pair of brownish shields. The mandibles have two teeth (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Mine of Ceutorhynchus minutus on Raphanus sativus Image: Willem Ellis (Bladmineerders van Europa)

Recorded on numerous genera and species of Brassicaceae, Capparaceae, Resedaceae and Tropaeolaceae, including Cochlearia in Britain and Arabis elsewhere. Widespread in Britain and continental Europe. Also recorded in the Republic of Ireland.

Ceutorhynchus minutus (Marsham, 1802) [Coleoptera: Curculionidae]