Monday 26 September 2016

Kymin mines

Sorry, after a few posts with actual moths I'm going to revert to squiggles in leaves!  A half hour lunchtime walk at The Kymin produced 20 species of leaf-mining moth, including a good haul on Birch and Rowan before these species drop their leaves.  Highlights were Bucculatrix ulmella, Stigmella samiatella, Phyllonorycter muelleriella and Tischeria ekebladella on Oak, Stigmella nylandriella and S. magdalenae on Rowan, and Stigmella continuella and S. sakhalinella on Birch, whilst the Beech trees that dominate the woodland held abundant Stigmella hemargyrella, S. tityrella and Phyllonorycter maestingella (but no Parornix fagivora despite deliberate searching.

Stigmella samiatella (dispersed greenish frass, a yellow larva still present in the mine) & Phyllonorycter muelleriella (long, tubular mines with pupa fixed to upper surface only, and little bound frass)  

Tischeria exebladella (a large mine with a silk blob and almost no frass) & Bucculatrix ulmella (a tiny squiggle near the midrib, with the larva leaving early) 
Stigmella continuella (dispersed green frass and no larva) & S. sakhalinella (coiled brown frass, mine already vacated)

1 comment:

  1. Educative and useful as always Sam. Coincidentally, I`m looking my mines collected in SS59 (Carms,WWT Penclacwydd area) this morning. One bag, collected c10 days ago has gone all mouldly (my fault - lack of time) but last Friday`s is ok. I`ve been looking particularly at Salix...
    Incidentally, `Kymin` is a corruption of `common` - a bit of useless info for you!

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