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Recent Publications
- The Nepticulidae and Opostegidae (Lepidoptera) of North West Europe
- Introduction to the Nepticulidae
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- The Ando-Patagonian Stigmella magnispinella group (Lepidoptera, Nepticulidae) with description of new species from Ecuador, Peru and Argentina
- Die Lepidopterenfauna von Herkulesbad und Orsova. Eine zoogeographische Studie
- Influences of leaf-mining insects on their host plants: A review
Nepticuloidea
Ectoedemia argyropeza (Zeller, 1839) Bradley et al., 1972
Ectoedemia argyropeza
Diagnostic description:Diagnosis: only females are known, which can easily be confused with klimeschi, see diagnosis for that species.
Morphology:Description.
Female. Forewing length (2.08) 2.6 — 3.16 mm (3.16 ± 0.25, 39), wingspan (4.5) 5.0— 6.8 mm. Head: frontal tuft and collar yellowish orange. Antennae with 26 — 32 segments (29.0 ± 1.7, 23). Thorax and forewings blackish fuscous, slightly irrorate by lighter scale basis; a medial dorsal and costal white spot, opposite, usually widely separate; dorsal spot sometimes extending along dorsal margin towards base.
Female genitalia. T7 without row of setae. T8 wide, trapezoid, with two lateral groups of scales and many setae (8 — 12 at least). Anal papillae with 5-9 setae. Vestibulum with vaginal sclerite, a dorsal spiculate pouch with many (about 70) single, equally spaced denticles; and a patch of densely packed pectinations near entrance of ductus spermathecae. Corpus bursae 495 — 660 µm, covered with small pectinations, partly in concentric bands around signa; signa slightly dissimilar, longest 270—394 µm (325.4 ± 42.0, 14), shortest 240— 351 µm (307.3 ± 35.4, 14), 3.4-4.3 x as long as wide. Ductus spermathecae with 2½ — 3 convolutions.
Larva. Pale yellow. Prothorax and segment 10 with sternites. Ventral plates absent.Associations:Hostplants: Populus tremula L., in North America on P. tremuloides Michx.
Mine. Egg on side of petiole, about 1 cm from leaf base. Mine first straight gallery in petiole, causing it to swell, later blotch in lamina between midrib and first lateral vein; frass in two lateral lines, leaving passage for larva, which often hides in petiole; mine similar to turbidella.Distribution:Ireland: Bond and Nieukerken 1987; Latvia: Savenkov et al. 1996; Lithuania: Ivinskis et al. 1985; Belarus: Merzheevskaja et al. 1976. Also recorded from Northeastern China (Van Nieukerken and Liu 2000), possibly as an introduction.
Life cycle:Life history. Univoltine. Larva starts feeding early, from July, mature larvae can be found from early September to November, often in green islands in fallen leaves. The larva feeds usually in dark only. Time of completing larval cycle largely depends on age of leaf: when leaf falls in September the larva will be full-grown a long time before larvae in leaves still on the tree. This probably applies as well to the related species. Adults fly from April to June.
This taxonomic description is based on Van Nieukerken (1985) and Van Nieukerken et al (2010).