Food Plant: Carex riparia (Greater Pond sedge) ; occasionally C.acutiformis (Lesser Pond sedge)

Egg: laid on a leaf

Mine: March-May

Notes: Initially forms a short mine with diverticula then swaps leaves and forms a long, thin whitish or brown gallery mine, upwards or downwards within a leaf. It may change leaves. Pupates within a white cocoon in a leaf just above the water level. Has a southerly distribution in the UK being found in wet areas such as swamps and riverbanks. Tweo mines on Greater Pond Sedge in the field in early spring, here growing in a sedge-rich flood meadow by the Thames. Backlighting reveals the frass in the mine, and shows them much more clearly than when they are not backlit and appear just as a brownish smudge on the leaf. ID confirmed via DNA barcoding.

Data: 07.iii.2022, Marston Meadows, Oxon., VC23

Image:© Will Langdon