Phyllonorycter junoniella
Encyclopedia
Phyllonorycter junoniella is a moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 of the Gracillariidae
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 ohridella....

 family. It is known from all of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, except Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

 and the Balkan Peninsula.
The wingspan
Wingspan
The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 7-8 mm. There are two generations per year with adults on wing n June and July and again later in the autumn.

The larva
Larva
A larva 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...

e feed on Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Vaccinium vitis-idaea is a short evergreen shrub in the heath family that bears edible sour fruit, native to boreal forest and Arctic tundra throughout the Northern Hemisphere from Eurasia to North America. In the past it was seldom cultivated, but fruit was commonly collected in the wild. ...

. They mine
Leaf miner
Leaf miner is a term used to describe the larvae of many different species of insect which live in and eat the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths , sawflies and flies , though some beetles and wasps also exhibit this behavior.Like Woodboring beetles, leaf...

the leaves of their host plant. They create a lower-surface tentiform mine, spanning almost the entire leaf. The leaf margins are strongly pulled together, arching the upper surface. Because the leaf tissue of the roof of the mine is incompletely eaten away, this upper surface has a mottled appearance.
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