Leaf-mine: The early gallery is filled with frass, later leaving clear margins (British leafminers).

Like Stigmella microtheriella the larva feeds on hazel or hornbeam, and its mines are often found alongside that species in the same leaf. However the mines of S. floslactella are generally wider, less angular and contain more scattered frass than those of S. microtheriella (UKMoths).

Oviposition at the underside of the leaf, in a vein axil. Mine a slender, gradually widening corridor; the last section is clearly wider than the larva. In the first section the vaguely delimited frass line almost fills the corridor. Later the frass lies in irregular arcs and clouds, filling about one third of the width of the corridor. The trajectory of the mine is not angular, independent of the leaf venation. Pupation external, exit slit in the upper epidermis (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Larva: The larva is a dull yellow, head pale brown (British leafminers).

Pale greenish to pale yellowish; see also Gustafsson and van Nieukerken (1990a) for a description. Contary to microtheriella the metanotum has a broad zone of fine spinules (Bladmineerders van Europa).

Pupa: Details unknown.

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

Hosts in Britain:

Hosts elsewhere:

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

Time of year - adults: There are two generations, with adults on the wing in May and August (UKMoths).

Distribution in Great Britain and Ireland: A widespread and fairly common species across most of the British Isles (UKMoths) including Banff, Bedfordshire, Brecon, Buckinghamshire, Caernarvonshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Denbighshire, Derbyshire, East Kent, East Norfolk, East Ross, East Suffolk, East Sutherland, Glamorgan, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kincardine, Mid-west Yorkshire, Middlesex, Monmouthshire, North Aberdeen, North Devon, North Ebudes, North Essex, North Hampshire, North Somerset, Radnorshire, Shropshire, South Aberdeen, South Essex, South Hampshire, South Lancaster, South Wiltshire, Stafford, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Gloucestershire, West Kent, West Lancaster, West Norfolk, West Suffolk, Westerness, 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). See also British leafminers distribution map.

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

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, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Danish mainland, Estonia, Finland, French mainland, Germany, Hungary, Italian mainland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norwegian mainland, Poland, Romania, Russia - Central and East, 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: