The leaf and stem mines of British flies and other insects
 

(Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera)

by Brian Pitkin, Willem Ellis, Colin Plant and Rob Edmunds

 

CAUCALIS. Bur-parsley. [Apiaceae]


Two species of Caucalis are recorded in Britain. Both are introduced and include the Small Bur-parsley (C. platycarpos).

Only one British miner is recorded on Caucalis.

A key to the European miners recorded on Caucalis in Bladmineerders van Europa.



Key for the identification of the known mines of British
insects (Diptera and non-Diptera) recorded on Caucalis


1 > Leaf-miner: A regular greenish inter-parenchymal blotch mine, frequently delimited by two veins, appearing somewhat mottled as a result of small deeper areas of feeding through the upper parenchyma (Spencer, 1972b: 78 (fig. 259); Spencer, 1976: 428, 429 (fig. 748).

The mine starts with a quite inconspicuous lower-surface corridor that soon changes into an extensive interparenchymatous blotch. The upper cell layer of the palisade parenchyma is eaten away in many places, giving the mine in transparency a perforated appearance. Fresh mines are pale green, later they turn brown; they give the leaves a strikingly diseased impression. Feeding lines absent, frass grains strikingly few. Larvae solitary. Pupation outside the mine, exit slit in lower epidermis.

Forms a blotch mine between two veins, having a characteristic sieve-like appearance (where the larva has fed through the upper parenchyma). Pupation outside the mine..

Phytomyza heracleana puparium
Phytomyza heracleana puparium
Image: © Willem Ellis (Bladmineerders van Europa)

On Heracleum, but not yet on Caucalis, in Britain and on Heracleum, ? Angelica, ? Caucalis, Laser, ? Laserpitium, Pastinaca, Peucedanum, Pimpinella and ? Seseli elsewhere. Widespread in Britain and continental Europe. Also recorded in the Republic of Ireland.

Phytomyza heracleana Hering, 1937 [Diptera: Agromyzidae].



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