Food Plant: Ranunculus spp.(Buttercup), especially R.acris (Meadow Buttercup) and R.repens (Creeping Buttercup); Ficaria verna (=Ranunculus ficaria: Lesser Celandine)

Mine: Several generations throughout the year. Mines may be found even in winter and under snow! (Spencer, 1976). Rarely it also mines stems.

Notes: The frass, in the long upper-surface white corridor, look like strings of pearls. P.ranunculivora makes similar long linear mines but in this species the frass grains are separate. Pupation is external. Warrington (2019) found that this species could also be an internal and external stem miner on R.acris, forming mines 8-17cm long.

Agromyzidae Recording Scheme Grade: 2,5

Data: 17.x.2004, Fleet, Hants, VC12

Image:© Rob Edmunds

References:
Hering, M (1957) - Bestimmungstabellen der Blattminen von Europa.
Robbins, J (1990) - A Provisional Atlas of The Leaf Miners of Warwickshire.
Spencer, K A (1976) - The Agromyzidae of Fennoscandia and Denmark.
Spencer, K.A (1972) - "Diptera: Agromyzidae" Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects, Royal Entomological Society of London.
Warrington, B (2019) - Organoxeny within Phytomyza ranunculi (Schrank) (Diptera, Agromyzidae) larvae