Pick and Mix !

[bobhelencoan]

Pick and Mix !

Thursday night was a low count but we had nice Pale Eggar. There must have been a local hatching of Eudonia angustea as we had 10 fresh looking one. Also, the Skin Moths seem to like our old carpet on our compost heap. 8 including a mating pair.

After Steve Hind's advice we looked for tenanted mines on Hawthorn when collecting food for our larvae. Steve said to look for other mines close by so we thought 3 on one leaf counted. Does this help with ID ?

Found several blotches on the underside tips of leaves. Some were tenanted so we tried to photograph the larvae. It does not seem the same as Parornix anglicella so is it not a moth mine ?

As usual any help is much appreciated.

Bob & Helen

[Greg]

Hi Bob and Helen,

Your first one is a Pale Eggar. Easy mistake.

Regards,
Greg

[bobhelencoan]

Thanks Greg.

Have corrected it.

Helen

[SteveH]

Hi Bob & Helen,

I'd agree with you that its not Parornix anglicella - though I have no idea as to its true identity. Not certain there's a moth larva sporting those colours that feed on Hawthorn so it may well be something else.

Cheers,
Steve

[stevehind]

I think you may have five mines on that Hawthorn leaf. There appears to be a Stigmella mine running from the petiole a short way up the left edge of the leaf. Immediately to the right of the Stigmella mine there is a pale area which resembles the other three mines elsewhere on the leaf. I reckon these four mines are Bucculatrix bechsteinella. The Bucculatrix moult between instars within a white cocoonet, usually on the underside of a leaf, so this is maybe what you have in your second photo. The larva also matches that of a newly emerged Bucculatrix bechsteinella larva.

Regards,
Steve

[SteveH]

Hi Folks,

How bizarre. I'd completely discounted bechsteinella as the larvae didn't come close to the one I photographed just a couple of weeks ago !

Steve, presumably you saying that the ones in Bob & Helens' photo are of a later instar to mine then ? Interesting stuff.

Cheers,
Steve

[stevehind]

I have this photo of a newly emerged larva, although I am not sure who the photographer is.

Regards,
Steve