Diagnosis. Ectoedemia caradjai can be separated from all other species in the suberis group by the white basal patch on the forewings, and in the male by the absence of androconial scales surrounding the hairpencil on the hindwing. In the male genitalia the truncate gnathos is diagnostic, the valvae resemble those of E. phaeolepis, and somewhat E. heckfordi.
Description.
Male. Forewing length 1.88—2.4 mm (2.19 ± 0.15, 13), wingspan 4.2 — 5.3 mm. Head: frontal tuft yellowish to yellow mixed fuscous; collar yellowish. Antennae long, with 43 — 51 segments (48.3 ± 2.6, 11), scape with some brown scales. Thorax brown, with some white scales, especially at tip of mesoscutum and tegulae. Forewings fuscous, with a basal white streak along dorsum, sometimes joining fascia, sometimes inconspicuous, and a medial, almost straight fascia, sometimes broken. Hindwing with snowwhite hair-pencil of ¼ hindwing length, not surrounded by special scales.
Female. Forewing length 2.32 — 2.68 mm (4), wingspan 5.2 — 5.8 mm. Antennal segments 30 — 32 (4).
Male genitalia. Capsule length 244—261 µm (251.1 ± 7.8, 5). Tegumen produced into small, but distinct, rounded pseuduncus. Gnathos with narrow long central element, blunt at tip, with smooth margins. Valva length 171—193 µm (187.7 ± 9.3, 5), inner margin basally almost straight, gradually becoming strongly concave towards pointed tip; outer margin uniformly convex. Aedeagus 274—291 µm (282 ± 7.0, 5), carinae pointed, single, curved outwards.
Female genitalia. T7 with a crescent-shaped patch of at least 100, very long setae, appearing pectinate at large magnifications (1000 X). In addition T7 + 8 covered with about 50 shorter, more widely spaced setae, T8 without scales. Anal papillae wide, each with about 40 setae. Vestibulum with vaginal sclerite, and an indistinct dorsal spiculate plate, with few spines. Corpus bursae 495 — 570 µm, covered with pectinations, except in distal third; signa almost similar, 300 — 394 µm (6), 2.4 — 2.7 times as long as wide. Ductus spermathecae with 3½ — 4 inconspicuous convolutions.
Larva. Green. Ventral plates absent.
Hostplants: Quercus pubescens Willd., Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl., Q. pyrenaica Willd., Q. frainetto Ten., Q. infectoria Olivier, Q. coccifera L. (Van Nieukerken 1985; Nieukerken et al. 2004a).
Egg on either surface, usually near or at margin. Early mine narrow contorted gallery up to 1.5 cm long, filled with frass, abruptly enlarging into roundish or elongated blotch with frass heaped near entrance, or in two lateral lines.
In central and southern Europe, south and east of the Alps. Westernmost locality is in France. Spain, Portugal: Van Nieukerken et al. 2004a; Czech Republic, Slovakia: Laštůvka and Laštůvka 1990b; Russia: Van Nieukerken et al. 2004b; Bulgaria: Beiger 1980, here confirmed by adults. One specimen from Portugal, listed by Nieukerken et al. (2004a), was a misidentification for E. phaeolepis, see there. New records from Spain: Laštůvka and Laštůvka 2008 and below.
Life history. Univoltine. Larvae from July to October. Adults from April to September. Since in Croatia from July larvae adults still emerged in July and from August larvae in September, we assume that there are at least three generations (at least partly) in southern Europe.
This taxonomic description is based on Van Nieukerken (1985) and Van Nieukerken et al (2010).