Food Plant: Salix repens (Creeping Willow)

Egg: underside of leaf

Mine: June-July; September-October

Notes: A short gallery, almost filled with frass, which usually follows the leaf edge then becomes a blotch, with dispersed frass, and occupying half the leaf. The vacated mines appear black. A rare miner in the UK, restricted to coastal sand dunes in south-east England and Kent. The larva is yellow to brownish yellow. A close-up of a mine on Salix repens var. argentea Mines often start on the midrib, or the edge, but sometimes as here they begin in the middle of the leaf. They generally then approach the edge of the leaf, follow it, and expand into a blotch.

Data: 02.viii.2022, Dungeness, Kent, VC15

Image:© Will Langdon