Food Plant: Carex spp: C.echinata (Star Sedge), C. flacca (Blue Sedge), C.laevigata (Smooth Sedge), C.paniculata (Greater tussock-sedge), C.pendula (Pendulous Sedge) ; Luzula pilosa (Hairy Woodrush), L.sylvatica (Great wood-rush)

Egg: laid under the tip of the leaf

Mine: September-May

Notes: Mines towards the base of the leaf, ultimately in a mine as broad as the leaf.The frass is deposited in large irregular islands.The larva is a whitish-grey and has a dark brown head and black prothoracic plate. If the leaf tip die-back in winter overtakes the mining larva it then moves to another leaf. A mine on Carex sylvatica, the larva is visible about a quarter of the way along from the left. Larvae often crawl up into the upper part of the mine and can be hard to detect among the frass there. Adult reared.

Data: 16.ii.2023, Aston Rowant NNR, Oxfordshire, VC23

Image:© Will Langdon