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

 

DAPHNE. [Thymelaeaceae]


Three species of Daphne are recorded in Britain. These include Spurge-laurel (D. laureola) and Mezereon (D. mezereum). All are native.

Only one British miner is recorded on Daphne.

A key to the European miners recorded on Daphne is provided in Bladmineerders van Europa.

Spurge-laurel - Daphne laureola. Image: © Linda Pitkin
Spurge-laurel
Daphne laureola



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


1 > Leaf-miner: As a smaller larva it mines a leaf, but feeds on the buds of ash in its later stages. In late autumn the larvae make an irregular small corridor with dispersed black frass. Often the corridor widens in the end into an irregular blotch with much less frass. The mine may begin at an egg shell (lower picture), but the larvae can leave their mine an start a new one elsewhere in the leaf; in that case the corridor begins with a small round opening. Before the leaf is shed the larva leaves the mine and bores into the bark, where it hibernates. After hibernation they live as shoot borer, or free among spun leaves. The larva mines the bark of a twig and overwinters in this. In spring it bores out the terminal shoot - causing it to droop.

On Fraxinus, but not yet on Daphne, in Britain and Fraxinus and ? Daphne elsewhere. Widespread in Britain, Ireland and continental Europe.

Prays fraxinella (Bjerkander, 1784) [Lepidoptera: Yponomeutidae].



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