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(Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera)
by
Brian Pitkin, Willem Ellis, Colin Plant and Rob Edmunds
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DAPHNE. [Thymelaeaceae]
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Three
species of Daphne are recorded in Britain. These include
Spurge-laurel (D. laureola) and Mezereon (D. mezereum).
All are native.
Only one British miner is recorded on Daphne.
A key to the European miners recorded on Daphne is provided in Bladmineerders van Europa.
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Spurge-laurel
Daphne laureola
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Key for the identification of the known mines of British
insects (Diptera and non-Diptera) recorded on Daphne
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1 > Leaf-miner: As a smaller larva it mines a leaf, but feeds on the buds of
ash in its later stages.
In
late autumn the larvae make an irregular small corridor with dispersed
black frass. Often the corridor widens in the end into an irregular
blotch with much less frass. The mine may begin at an egg shell
(lower picture), but the larvae can leave their mine an start a
new one elsewhere in the leaf; in that case the corridor begins
with a small round opening. Before the leaf is shed the larva leaves
the mine and bores into the bark, where it hibernates. After hibernation
they live as shoot borer, or free among spun leaves. The larva mines the bark of a twig and overwinters
in this. In spring it bores out the terminal shoot - causing it
to droop. |
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On Fraxinus, but not yet on Daphne, in Britain
and Fraxinus and ? Daphne elsewhere. Widespread
in Britain, Ireland and continental Europe.
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Prays
fraxinella (Bjerkander, 1784) [Lepidoptera: Yponomeutidae]. |
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