Phyllonorycter acerifoliella (Zeller, 1839) Species
Last modified: March 3, 2024, 3:41 p.m.
Spread all over the country but rarely plentiful. Distribution is coextensive with the range of the food plant. Hitherto a fairly common species.
Details
- Classification
- Family: Gracillariidae > Subfamily: Lithocolletinae > Genus: Phyllonorycter > Species: Phyllonorycter acerifoliella
- Vernacular names
- Spaanse aakvouwmot (NL), Maple midget (EN)
- Synonyms
- Phyllonorycter sylvella (Haworth, 1828), nec (Hübner, 1813)
- First mention in Belgium
- Fologne E. 1859b. Supplément au catalogue des lépidoptères de Belgique. — Annales de la Société entomologique belge 3: 133–142. On page 141 (as Lithocolletis acerifoliella. F. V. R.; Z.). view page
- Status
-
Native
Distribution
Imago
Head pure white; forewings ground colour pure white with brownish pattern: a softly bent transveral line just before the middle, two striae, one costal the other from the inner margin, touching in the middle and pointing distally.
Museum specimens
No pictures yet!Specimens in nature
No pictures yet!Mine
A small tentiform mine on the underside of the leaf, most of the time in one leaf segment and preferably at the tip of a leaf lobe.
See also gracillariidae.net and bladmineerders.be.
Cocoon/pupa
A thin-walled cocoon.
Bionomics
In older mines the caterpillar also eats the palissade parenchyma causing the leaf to fold over the mine and the upper surface of the leaf to change colour, sometimes to transparant whitish.
The dark brown pupa lays in a thin-walled cocoon, attached to the floor of the mine, while all the frass is concentrated in the opposite corner. The species hibertanes in the pupal stage.
Flight periods
Two generations a year: May and August.
Habitat
Forest margins, open places in forests, road sides, parks, public gardens.
