Leaf-mine: The young larva mines the leaves of its foodplant then hibernates. It will then mines leaves or flowerbuds, then blossom or leaves (British leafminers).

Branched, sometimes stellate, brownish, very transparent, sometimes long corridor that contains no frass. All frass is ejected through a number of tiny openings that generally are close to a vein. Only the young larvae are miners (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Larva: Larva reddish brown; head and prothoracic plate black (Bland et al., 2002a) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: Details unknown.

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: August - May (British leafminers).

Time of year - adults: The adult moths fly in July and August, and are attracted to light, but can also be found resting on tree trunks (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: England from Yorkshire southwards (UKMoths) including Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Denbighshire, East Kent, East Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Isle Of Wight, Middlesex, North Essex, Northamptonshire, South Essex, South Hampshire,
West Kent, 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 in North Wales, although its range appears to be contracting rapidly UKMoths. It occurs in orchards, where it can be a pest (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 Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, French mainland, Germany, Greek mainland, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Poland, Portuguese mainland, Romania, Russia - Central, East and South, Sardinia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, 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.