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 and inconspicuous if viewed from above (Langdon, 2023). 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. A mine on Echium vulgare opened up to expose the cocoon. This is formed of two layers, a light outer one, and within that, a thicker, oval cocoon, which the pupa sits inside (top photo).The pupa (lateral view), exposed in the double-layered cocoon in a mine on Echium vulgare (bottom photo). Adult reared to confirm the ID. 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.

Data: 22.x.2022 ex mine 01.x.2022, Dungeness, Kent, VC15

Image:© Will Langdon