Leaf Mines

Inspired by a post by Colin Plant on the Herts & Middx. Moths yahoo group, I went looking at the extensive collection of Field Maple at the Chiltern Open Air Museum site, for mines of Stigmella aceris. Since the site is not in Herts (even though the county border forms one of the edges of the site) my results are not relevant to their records.

I managed to find at least three mines of the species in the fallen leaves (I've found it there before), and also, in the fallen leaves of Black Poplar, I found a couple of mines of Phyllocnistis unipunctella.

The other target species in Colin's post was Stigmella speciosa; a sycamore leaf from my home village of Seer Green contains two mines which I think are this species, although both are somewhat shorter than examples shown on leafmines.

Dave Morris