Food Plant: Symphytum officiniale (Common comfrey), Pulmonaria longifolia (narrow-leaved Lungwort)

Egg: underside, near to the rib

Mine: August-September

Notes: Formerly Acrocercops imperialella. A rare miner in the UK, found in damp woodland and fens. The initial gallery is soon absorbed into a blotch. The blotch is squarish as the larva eats through the leaf parenchyma to the upper epidermis. The blotch turns brown and care must be taken to distinguish these mines from diptera - which can form blackish blotches. The lower surface of the leaf becomes creased - whereas it remains smooth with dipterous miners.

Data:30.vi.2005, ex mine 26.vi.2005, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Image:© Rob Edmunds