Food Plant: Echium vulgare (Vipers Bugloss) Elsewhere: Anchusa strigosa (Strigose Bugloss); Borago officinalis (Borage); Cynoglossum clandestinum; C. creticum (Blue Hound's-tongue); C. officinale (Common Hound's-tongue); Echium aculeatum (White Bugloss), E.candicans (Pride of Madeira), E.fastuosum (Pride of Madeira), E.giganteum, E.italicum (Italian Viper's Bugloss); E.lusitanicum (Borage); E.nervosum, E.plantagineum (Purple Viper's Bugloss), E.spinosum; Myosotis macrocalycina ; Symphytum sp.

Mine: September (possibly bivoltine)

Notes: Initially forms a narrow twisting gallery which then forms an elongated blotch mine by the midrib, with a wrinkled surface, which may absorb this early gallery. The mine is usually lower surface as shown on the underside of Echium vulgare leaves in the field. Most mines at Dungeness were on the underside of leaves, and being shallow, they left little sign of their presence from above. This meant that finding them required checking of the undersides in the manner illustrated. The early galleries and blotches turn brown on ageing. There may be more than one mine in a leaf and these may merge into one blotch. Pupation is within the mine in a silken cocoon. First recorded in the UK in Kent (2004), when a moth was trapped. This is the third British record and the first of the moth being bred (Langdon, 2023). A predominantly Southern European species. Moth bred to identify.

Data: 01.x.2022, Dungeness, Kent, VC15

Image:© Will Langdon