Food Plant: Avenula pubescens (Downy Oatgrass ), Bromopsis erecta (Upright Brome), Koeleria macrantha (Crested hair-grass), other grasses too.

Egg: on the leaf

Mine: April-May; July

Notes: Makes a flat narrow mine, at first a yellow-green colour and later turning reddish-purple. Found in dry basic grassland. A mine on Bromopsis erecta growing in a short chalk grassland sward. The larva has mined down the leaf, pupating at the base (as is common for this species). The freshest (lower) part of the mine is white and the older sections have turned red as is normal on Bromopsis erecta and can make mines relatively easy to detect with practice. Adult reared, gen. det. Peter Hall.

Data: 29.iv.2024, Aston Rowant NNR, Oxfordshire, VC23

Image:© Will Langdon