Acrocercops brongniardella (Fabricius, 1798)
[Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae]

Leaf-mine: A silvery sinuous gallery on the upper side, leading to a large, papery blotch. Sometimes several galleries lead to the same blotch (British leafminers).

The mine begins as a rather tortuous upper surface, epidermal, corridor. As a rule several mines on a leaf, and when the corridors widen they coalcesce into one white epidermal blotch. After a moult the larvae start feeding from the palissade parenchyma that forms the floor of their communal mine, which is not widened any more. Pupation outside the mine (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Larva: The larva is illustrated in Bladmineerders van Europa.

Acrocercops brongniardella larva, dorsal Image: Willem Ellis (Bladmineerders van Europa)

Pupa: The pupa is in a silken cocoon amongst detritus; occasionally inside mine (British leafminers).

Adult: The adult is illustrated in UKMoths. The male genitalia, but not the female genitalia (check for update), are illustrated by the Lepidoptera Dissection Group.

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

Time of year - larvae: May - June (British leafminers).

Time of year - adults: End of July. It can also overwinter and be found again in April and May (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: This is a very local species (UKMoths). Records include Bedfordshire, Caernarvonshire, Cambridgeshire, East Norfolk, East Suffolk, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, North Essex, North Hampshire, North Somerset, Shropshire, South Hampshire, South Lancaster,
Stafford, Surrey, West Gloucestershire, West Norfolk, West Suffolk and Worcestershire
(NBN Gateway - N.B. includes Watsonian Vice Counties having publicly available records that fall within or overlap the vice county border at 10km resolution or better i.e. a record for a vice county may relate to an adjacent vice county - for included datasets see NBN Grid map below) and the Channel Islands. Also Fleet, Hampshire (British leafminers). See also British leafminers distribution map.

Also recorded in the Republic of Ireland (Karsholt and van Nieukerken in Fauna Europaea; UKMoths).

NBN Grid map: Note that not all datasets on the NBN Gateway may be available on the map below. If you are an NBN Gateway registered user you can request access for missing datasets via the link 'Open interactive map in new window' below.

Distribution elsewhere: Widespread in continental Europe including Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Greek mainland, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Portuguese mainland, Romania, Russia - Central, East, Northwest and South, Sardinia, Sicily, Slovakia, Spanish mainland, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Ukraine (Karsholt and van Nieukerken in Fauna Europaea).

NBN interactive distribution map(s) of known host species in Great Britain and Ireland and elsewhere:

Parasitoids in Britain and elsewhere: Unknown.