CHORISPORA. [Brassicaceae]

Two species of Chorispora are recorded in Britain. Both are introduced.

No Diptera miners are recorded on Chorispora in Britain.

Elsewhere the agromyzid Liriomyza bryoniae is recorded mining Chorispora.

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

A key to the European miners on Chorispora is provided in Bladmineerders van Europa. This includes Liriomyza bryoniae and Ceutorhynchus minutus.

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, but not yet on Chorispora, in Britain and Chorispora elsewhere. Widespread in Britain and continental Europe. Also recorded in the Republic of Ireland.

Ceutorhynchus minutus (Reich, 1797) [Coleoptera: Curculionidae]