''Parornix torquillella'' 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, ''Cameraria ...

found in Europe. The larvae

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 ''

Prunus ''Prunus'' is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes (among many others) the fruits plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. Native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and the p ...

'' species, such as blackthorn ('' Prunus spinosa''). It was described by the German

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

Philipp Christoph Zeller in 1850, from specimens found in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, Leghorn and

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

Description

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 of ...

is 9–13 mm. The head is pale ochreous mixed with fuscous. Palpi white. Forewings are rather dark fuscous, purplish-tinged, towards dorsum and costa more blackish numerous costal streaks, a spot in disc posteriorly, and two or three dorsal spots white; a black apical dot, strongly white edged anteriorly; cilia with three entire dark fuscous lines. Hind wings are grey. The larva is pale yellow -green; dorsal line dark green or reddish; head pale yellow; segment 2 with four black spots. 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. The ...

e feed on dwarf cherry ('' Prunus cerasus''), plums ('' Prunus domestica''), Damson ('' Prunus insititia''), beach plum (''

Prunus maritima ''Prunus maritima'', the beach plum, is a species of plum native to the East Coast of the United States. It is a choice wild edible and its few pests and salt tolerance make it a resilient fruit crop for degraded lands and urban soils. Descript ...

'') and blackthorn ('' Prunus spinosa''). They

the leaves of their host plant.

Distribution

It is known from all of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, except

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and parts of the

Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

Gallery

Image:Parornix torquillella mines.JPG, Blackthorn leaf with the mine of a young larva (3b); and blackthorn leaves screwed up by a late instar larva (3b*) Image:Parornix torquillella larva.JPG, Larva File:Deltaornix torquillella, Trawscoed, North Wales, May 2010 (19989822298).jpg, Imago

Taxonomy

The genus ''Paronix'' comes from ''para'', meaning alongside and ''ornix'' named after the genus '' Ornix'' Treitschke, 1833, which refers to ''ornis'', a bird. The genus ''Ornix'' originally included a wide range of feathery-winged microlepidoptera in the Coleophoridae and the

. ''Ornix'' was an early

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of the genus '' Coleophora'' as a number of moths were name after birds. The feathery-winged moths were later restricted to ''Paronix''. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''torquillella'' comes from ''torquis'' – a collar, ″from the prothoracic plate of the larva, which consists of four transversely placed black spots.

References

External links

''Parornix torquillella'' at UKmoths
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7139543 Parornix Leaf miners Moths described in 1850 Moths of Europe Taxa named by Philipp Christoph Zeller