HIPPOCREPIS. Horseshoe Vetch. [Fabaceae]

Four species of Hippocrepis are recorded in Britain. These include the native Horseshoe Vetch (H. comosa).

No Diptera miners are recorded on Hippocrepis in Britain.

Elsewhere the agromyzid Liriomyza congesta is recorded mining Hippocrepis.

No non-Diptera leaf-miners are recorded on Hippocrepis in Britain.

One non-Diptera miner is recorded on Hippocrepis elsewhere (see below).

A key to the European miners, based on characteristics of the mines, immature stages and where relevant the larval cases, recorded on Hippocrepis is provided in Bladmineerders van Europa.

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

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).