''Gracillaria albicapitata'' is a
moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
of the family
Gracillariidae
Gracillariidae is an important family of insects in the order Lepidoptera and the principal family of leaf miners that includes several economic, horticultural or recently invasive pest species such as the horse-chestnut leaf miner, ''Camerar ...
. It is known from the islands of
Hokkaidō and
Honshū in
Japan and the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
.
Global Taxonomic Database of Gracillariidae (Lepidoptera)
/ref>
The wingspan
The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...
is 9.8–12.5 mm.
The larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
e feed on ''Fraxinus lanuginosa
''Fraxinus lanuginosa'' (Japanese ash; Japanese language, Japanese: アオダモ Aodamo) is a species of ash tree, ash native to Japan and to the Primorye region of eastern Russia.
''Fraxinus lanuginosa''is a medium-sized deciduous tree growing ...
'', '' Fraxinus mandshurica'', '' Syringa amurensis'', '' Syringa reticulata'' and ''Syringa vulgaris
''Syringa vulgaris'', the lilac or common lilac, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family Oleaceae, native to the Balkan Peninsula, where it grows on rocky hills.Rushforth, K. (1999). ''Trees of Britain and Europe''. Collins .Med-Check ...
''. They mine
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
* Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
...
the leaves of their host plant. Young larvae mine directly into the middle layer of the parenchymal
Parenchyma () is the bulk of functional substance in an animal organ or structure such as a tumour. In zoology it is the name for the tissue that fills the interior of flatworms.
Etymology
The term ''parenchyma'' is New Latin from the word ...
tissue of the leaf or leaflet. The mine made by the larvae of the first three instar
An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ...
s is irregularly large blotchy or wide linear, and inter-parenchymal, with a few weak wrinkles on both the upper and lower surfaces. In the fourth instar, the larvae leave the mine for another leaf or leaflet, and roll it from the tip towards the underside. The leaf roll made by the larvae of the last two instars is very large and cigarette-like in form. The cocoon is usually found at the margin of fallen leaves in the field. It is buff whitish and boat-shaped. The species hibernates in the pupal stage.
References
Gracillariinae
Moths of Japan
Moths described in 1930
{{Gracillariinae-stub