Leaf-mine: The larva mines the leaves of various roseaceous trees, such as blackthorn and apple, forming a gallery leading to a blotch (UKMoths).

Eggs are deposited in the underside of a leaf, well away from the margin, often several per leaf. Around the oviposition site a cavity develops that in the end often leaves a hole in the leaf. Then a narrow, hardly widening, winding corridor, largely filled with a broad reddish brown frass line. The corridor abruptly widens into a wide, full depth blotch, that often lies against the leaf margin. The larva may leave its mine and continue elsewere, even on a different leaf. Note that the first blotch may already lie on a different leaf. Frass dispersed, in oval granules. Most frass is ejected through semicircular cuts along the outer limit of the blotch; part of it is often trapped in strands of silk under the leaf (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Forms blotch mines from an initial gallery (British leafminers).

Larva: Whitish (also head and thoracic feet), less slender than the one of L. clerkella. The larva is described by Grandi (1931a, 1933a) and Schmitt, Brown and Davis (1996a) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: The pupal cocoon is suspended from silken 'guy ropes' and closely resembles that of L. clerkella (UKMoths).

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

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

Time of year - larvae: Details unknown.

Time of year - adults: The adult moths fly in September, and overwinter, appearing again in the spring (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: Formerly locally resident in parts of southern and central England (UKMoths) including Herefordshire and South-west Yorkshire (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).

Rediscovered in the UK after over 100 years. The latest sighting of the moth was in Somerset in 2007 (British leafminers).

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, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Greek mainland, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Romania, Russia - Central, East and Northwest, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine and Yugoslavia (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: