Leaf-mine: A narrow gallery with frass in thin central line. The moths must be bred through to distinguish S.alnetella and S.glutinosae (British leafminers).

Ovipostion at the leaf lower surface. Then a full depth slender, corridor, often following a vein or the leaf margin for some distance. Frass in a continuous central line that nowhere is wider than one third of the corridor width. Frass never coiled. Usually only one mine in a leaf. Pupation outside the mine (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Larva: The larva is a pale yellow laterally and white dorsally with the green gut visible from above; head pale brown (British leafminers).

Yellow, head light brown; abdominal segment 1 ventrally spinulose (Gustafsson and van Nieukerken, 1990a). Prosternum without a spot (which is present in glutinosae) (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: Details unknown.

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

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

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

Time of year - adults: Unknown.

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: Widespread in Britain including Ayrshire, Bedfordshire, Caernarvonshire, Cambridgeshire, Carmarthenshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, East Gloucestershire, East Norfolk, East Suffolk, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kincardine, Middlesex
Monmouthshire, North Essex, North Hampshire, North Somerset, Shropshire, South Aberdeen, South Lancaster, South Wiltshire, Stafford, 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 Northen Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. See also British leafminers distribution map.

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, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Estonia, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Hungary, Italian mainland, Lithuania, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Portuguese mainland, Romania, Russia - East, Sardinia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spanish mainland, 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: Unknown.