Food Plant: Rubus fruticosus agg. (Bramble). In Europe also recorded on Agrimonia eupatoria (Agrimony)

Egg: Upper surface of leaf

Mine: throughout the year

Notes: A very rare species in the UK restricted to Dorset (England) and the Burren (Ireland). It prefers maritime localities in warm sunny positions. A short, twisting irregular gallery with frass filling two-thirds of its width. In exposed leaves the frass is densely packed, whereas in shaded leaves it is thinner. The larva is yellow. It usually forms distinct dark brown mines, darker than S.aurella and the gallery edges are more conspicuously purple. The cocoon is pale brown (seen top left in the photo). It is advisable to breed the moth out to distinguish from S.aurella (Moth emerged from the above mines 30.i.2012)

National Status: pRDB2

Bradley No: 54

Data: 16.xii.2011, Dorset, VC9

Image:© Tony Davis