Food Plant: Clinopodium vulgare (Wild Basil)

Egg: underside of the leaf near the midrib

Mine: September-May; July-August

Notes: Initially makes a thin brown gallery with central frass which runs to the leaf apex and then turns back on itself (as shown). The mine then becomes a full depth blotch, which may occupy the whole leaf. The larvae may swap leaves as they feed in the blotch mine phase. Pupation is in a white cocoon in debris on the underside of a curled leaf. A species found on the edge of calcareous woods where its foodplant occurs, as shown in a habitat.

Data: East Kent, VC15

Image:© David Shenton