Leaf-mine: A broad intial mine from tip to base of leaf, which later contracts. It then folds the leaf edge, later it rolls the whole leaf longitudinally. Compare with C. betulicola, which rolls the leaf transversally (British leafminers).

At first the mine is epidermal and rather large, sometimes even occupying the entire length of the leaf. At a later stage the larva begins to consume the tissue below the epidermis, and the mine becomes a tentiform one; the leaf is strongly contracted by then. The epidermis is brown. The mine may be lower-surface or upper-surface. After the mine has been vacated the larva moves twice. At first it lives in a rolled, sometimes just folded, leaf margin, next in a leaf that has been rolled lengthwise. Pupation in a cocoon at the underside of a leaf (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Despite the scientific name, the larvae feed on birch leaves (UKMoths).

Larva: Whitish, head light brown; pronotum without black markings (Brown, 1947a) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: Described by Patocka and Zach (1995a) and Patocka and Turcani (2005) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

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

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

Time of year - larvae: July-August (British leafminers).

Time of year - adults: August onwards, overwintering after which they may be seen until April or May (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: A species of moorland and heath, having a wide distribution over much of mainland Britain (UKMoths) including Bedfordshire, East Suffolk, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Middlesex, North Somerset, Stafford, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Gloucestershire, West Kent, 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).

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, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Estonia, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Romania, Russia - Central, East, North, Northwest and South, 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.