The translucent pale-grey caterpillar has a brown head. The mesonotum shows a black spot (missing in A. treitschkiella).

Initially, the mine is a narrow gallery along the leaf edge when the egg has been laid there but it is a wrinkled gallery when the egg was laid elsewhere in the leaf. The width of the frass line in the gallery is variable. Later on, the caterpillar constructs a full-depth bladder mine that often overruns the initial corridor gallery. The frass in the blotch mine is generally in a pile on one side of the mine, with some scattered grains.
See also bladmineerders.be

To deposit the egg, the female punctures a leaf at the underside, usually near its edge. The mine starts as a narrow gallery along the leaf edge when the egg has been laid there but as a wrinkled one when the egg was laid elsewhere in the leaf. The width of the frass line in the gallery is variable. Later on, the caterpillar constructs a full-depth bladder mine that often overruns the initial corridor gallery. The frass in the blotch mine is generally in a pile on one side of the mine, with some scattered grains. Eventually, the larva cuts a 4–5 mm long excision in which it crawls – or lowers itself – towards the soil. The caterpillar hibernates and subsequently pupates in the following spring.

The caterpillar is monophagous on Cornus sanguinea.