Ectoedemia louisella new to Cheshire VC58

[stevehind]

Ectoedemia louisella new to Cheshire VC58:

Decided to kick off the leaf mining season with a trip to Tarvin last Sunday and more specifically their Community Woodland project after reading about it on their website http://www.tarvincommunitywoodland.org/ as this lies within the tetrad SJ46Y, a tetrad in which there were only three previous leaf mine records. Mel Bellingham and Huw John joined me and we managed to add another 40 species during our stroll around the site. One of the species widely planted at the site was Field Maple Acer campestre and we soon found Phyllonorycter acerifoliella on the leaves. With the recent discovery of Ectoedemia sericopeza in Cheshire http://www.record-lrc.co.uk/forum/viewt ... f=24&t=512 , a species whose larva feeds in the seeds, I had a look for the closely related Ectoedemia louisella and soon found gallery mines in the samara. Convincing ourselves that we could see an egg at the start of the mine took a while but eventually we found mines where the egg was visible. The attached picture shows the thin black gallery mine in the samara as well as a spun cocoon to the right of the seed.

Mel also found the Maple Pug (Eupithecia inturbata) nearby, another species which feeds on Field Maple. The Maple Pug was only added to the county list in 2006 and until now appeared to be restricted to a single garden in Alsager. Clearly Field Maple deserves a closer look from now on.

Steve