Leaf-mine: Initially a lower epidermal gallery which leads to a blotch at the leaf-edge. Subsequently creates two or three cones by folding the edge or tip of a leaf downwards (British leafminers).

The mine begins with an unusually long lower-surface epidermal corridor that often follows the midrib for some distance, but finally turns towards the leaf margin, where a small blotch is made of up to 1 cm in diameter. The blotch initially is fully epidermal, but later the larva starts consuming parenchyma, silk is deposited, and the blotch begins to develop into a somewhat contracted tentiform mine. In the end the mine is vacated and the larva continues living freely under a leaf fold that has been fixed with silk, or in a leaf tip that has been turned into a cone. Pupation in a shiny cocoon at the underside of the leaf (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Larva: The larva is illustrated in UKMoths and Bladmineerders van Europa.

Pupa: Beneath a silken membrane on underside of leaf (British leafminers). The pupa lies in a vitreous cocoon, in an under-surface fold of the leaf, that is covered with a parchment-like membrane. See Patočka and Zach (1995a) (Bladmineerders van Europa.

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

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

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

Time of year - adults: Late June and July, and again from September onwards (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: Fairly common throughout Britain including Lancaster (Littleborough) (UKMoths); Anglesey, Bedfordshire, Brecon, Cambridgeshire, Carmarthenshire, Cheshire, Cumberland, Denbighshire, Derbyshire, East Cornwall, East Norfolk, East Ross, East Suffolk, Easterness, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kincardine, Merionethshire, Middlesex, Monmouthshire, North Ebudes, North Essex, North Somerset, North Wiltshire, Pembrokeshire, Radnorshire, Shropshire, South Aberdeen, South Devon, South Hampshire, South Lancaster, South Wiltshire, South-west Yorkshire, Stafford, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Cornwall, West Gloucestershire, West Kent, West Lancaster, West Norfolk, West Suffolk, Westmorland 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), the Channel Is. and Northern Ireland (Karsholt and van Nieukerken in Fauna Europaea). See also British leafminers distribution map.

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

NBN Grid map:

Distribution elsewhere: Widespread in continental Europe including Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Estonia, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Portuguese mainland, Romania, Russia - Central, East, North, Northwest and South, Sardinia, 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.

Belgian Lepidoptera
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Bladmineerders van Europa
British leafminers
Encyclopedia of Life
Fauna Europaea
NBN Gateway
UKMoths