Leaf-mine: The larva feeds in a leaf-mine to begin with, then later feeds externally on the leaves, shrivelling and blanching or browning them (UKMoths).

Initially an extremely fine corridor along the leaf margin; these mines mainly in the lower leaves. Frass in a narrow central line. The larva can leave its mine and restart elsewhere. Older larvae live free, and feed by slicing open the margin of a leaf segment near its tip and eating away as much tissue as it can reach (to about one third of its body length). The result is a number of full depth blotch mines. When the larva has become too large even for this strategy, its starts to feed freely on the leaf (Bladmineerders van Europa).

The mines and larvae are illustrated in British leafminers.

Larva: Twice during its growth, it spins a white cocoonet in which it moults its skin. The cocoonet is constructed on the upper surface of a leaf, where it is easily detected. If held up to the light, the larva, or its cast skin retaining the larval shape, can be seen (UKMoths).

The mining larva is amber yellow (intestine greenish as usual), head and prothoracic shield brown; the chaetotaxy is described by Klimesch (1942a) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: The larva pupates in a distinctive whitish ribbed cocoon (UKMoths).

Adult: The adult is illustrated in UKMoths. The male and female genitalia are illustrated by the Lepidoptera Dissection Group.

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

Time of year - larvae: April and May and again in July (UKMoths; British leafminers).

Time of year - adults: May and June, then July to August (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: Fairly widespread in England including Lancaster (Greater Manchester, Flixton), Chester (UKMoths), Suffolk (Thetford) (British leafminers); Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, East Suffolk, North Hampshire, Shropshire, South Essex, South Wiltshire, Stafford, Warwickshire, West Norfolk, West Suffolk and Worcestershire (NBN Gateway, includes Watsonian Vice Counties having records that fall within or overlap the vice county border at 10km resolution or better). See also British leafminers distribution map.

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

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, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Estonia, French mainland, Germany, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Romania, Russia - Central, East. North and Northwest, Slovakia, 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.