The leaf and stem  mines of British flies and other insects by Brian Pitkin, Willem Ellis, Colin Plant and Rob Edmunds.


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Scrobipalpa salinella (Zeller, 1847)
[Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae]
.


Gelechia salinella Zeller, 1847. Isis: 853.
Scrobipalpa salinella
(Zeller, 1847).


Leaf-mine: Long, extremely narrow lower- or upper-surface corridor, with a black or brown central frass line. After a while this primary mine is vacated, and the larva starts making shorter, much broader, full depth blotch mines. In the end the larva lives free among spun leaves (Bladmineerders van Europa).

The mine is also described and illustrated in UKMoths.

Larva: The larvae can live on plants on the lowest parts of saltings, which are frequently immersed by the tide (UKMoths).

Dirty yellow with a red length line; head light brown; pronotum, anal shield and thoracic feet black (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: The pupa is described and illustrated in UKMoths.

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

Comments: According to the literature also on Aster tripolium and Suaeda maritima, but probably this concerns occasional observations or confusion with the mines of Bucculatrix maritima (Bland, 2002a; Jansen, in litt.)

The list of hostplants presented by Elsner et al. (1999a), including Atriplex, Spergularia media and even Ferula is bizarre (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Hosts in Britain:

Asteraceae      

? Aster

tripolium Sea Aster Bland, 2002a
? Aster tripolium Sea Aster Pitkin & Plant
Chenopodiaceae      

? Suaeda

maritima Annual Sea-blite Bland, 2002a

Hosts elsewhere:

Chenopodiaceae      
Salicornia europaea Common Glasswort Bladmineerders van Europa

Time of year - larvae: May (UKMoths).

Time of year - adults: June - September (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain & Ireland: Found on saltings in England and Wales where its foodplants grow (UKMoths) including Dorset, East Kent, Isle of Wight, North Lincoln, South Essex, South Hants and West Sussex (NBN Gateway distribution map - NE). It is regarded as a local and difficult-to-record species (MBGBI 4-2), and can probably be most easily found by searching for larvae from late April to early June (UKMoths).

NBN Grid map:

Distribution elsewhere: Widespread in Europe including Albania, Austria, Balearic Is., Belgium, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Greek mainland, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Poland, Portuguese mainland, Romania, Russia - South, Sardinia, Sicily, Spanish mainland, Sweden, The Netherlands and Ukraine (Karsholt & van Nieukerken in Fauna Europaea).

NBN interactive distribution maps of known host species in Britain and elsewhere:

? Aster tripolium, Salicornia europaea, ? Suaeda maritima

Parasitoids in Britain and elsewhere: Unknown.



External links: Search the internet:

Belgian Lepidoptera
British leafminers
NBN Gateway
Bladmineerders van Europa
Fauna Europaea
UKMoths

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Last updated 08-Sep-2010  Brian Pitkin