Psychoides verhuella Bruand, 1853 Species
Last modified: March 21, 2024, 11:28 a.m.
In the past only known from a record in 1862 near Dinant (NA), but in 2009 found again in the same province. By searching for mining lepidoptera, the species is already found in several more provinces, most of them located in the south of the country.
Details
- Classification
- Family: Tineidae > Subfamily: Teichobiinae > Genus: Psychoides > Species: Psychoides verhuella
- Vernacular names
- Tongvarenvretertje (NL)
- Synonyms
- Psychoides verhuellella (Stainton, 1854)
- First mention in Belgium
- Fologne E. 1862a. Notes d'une excursion à Fondeleffe, près de Dinant. — Annales de la Société entomologique belge 6: 23–25. On page 23.
- Status
-
Native
Distribution
Imago
Wingspan 8–12 mm. Forewings grey brown with characteristic strong blue or purple reflections and with strongly rounded wing tips.
Museum specimens
No pictures yet!Specimens in nature
No pictures yet!Caterpillar
The yellow-white colored larvae mines from autumn till May.
Mine
Young caterpillars make a small full depth corridor or blotch mine, where they concentrate the blackish frass. Later they live outside the mine on the leaves in a small spun case covered with the produced frass.
See also bladmineerders.be
Cocoon/pupa
Bionomics
The eggs are deposited on the green leaves, often near a grain.
Pupation takes places in the larval case, which is often fixed against a midrib of a leaf.
Adults are active during daylight, especially in early morning and in late afternoon. They stay in the neighbourhood of the food plant, where they rest usually inconspicuously on the underside of the leaves of the host plant.
Flight periods
The adults fly in one generation a year during June and July.
Observed on
- Host plant (species):
- Phyllitis scolopendrium
- Host plant (genera):
- Asplenium and Ceterach
The larva mines mature ferns, especially on Asplenium scolopendrium, but also found on other Asplenium species and on Ceterach officinarium.
