As part of a modest catch last night (too windy) in my central Oxford garden I had this leaf miner species. At first I thought it was going to be Horse-chestnut because we have a large tree just a few doors down. However it's not one and I can't seem to find it in the book (Sterling, Parsons & Lewington). I was wondering if someone with a more comprehensive book could ID it for me.
Edit:Been doing a bit of Googling and there are a number of matches such as Phyllonorycter lantanella. I am guessing that it is a gen det job so unless anyone has any better suggestions I will record it as Phyllonorycter lantanella agg.
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| Leaf Miner species |
Hi Adam,
ReplyDeleteYes, unfortunately that's the most frequent wing pattern on Phyllonorycters and it would really have needed genitalia inspection to get to species - it is far easier to record their earlier stages as leaf-mines! The best place to find images of the adults is the UK Moths website for which there is a link on the right hand side of this page.
In my experience P.lantanella isn't all that common and in any case it doesn't look quite right for that species. I'd suggest something like P.oxyacanthae (which mines hawthorn) is rather more likely, although there are several other possibilities.
Hi David, thanks for that. I'll record it as P.oxyacanthae Agg then.
ReplyDeleteI also find the Norfolk moths website normally has a good range of images of the adult moths often showing a range of variation within the species.
ReplyDelete