Caloptilia stigmatella

• Subfamily: Gracillariinae
• Wingspan: 12-14 mm
• Flight period: Jun - Jul
• Spread: Uncommon
• Host plants: Myricaceae, Salicaceae

Information

Caloptilia stigmatella also called White-triangle Slenderis a small moth of the Gracillariidae family, subfamily Gracillariinae, with a wingspan of 12-14 mm.
In Europe it is present almost everywhere, it is absent from Slovenia from Greece and Romania. In Italy it is absent from Sicily. *
Its range extends to the whole Palearctic region as well as to the Neartic one.

The front wing of Caloptilia stigmatella is uniformly brown or hazel in color, with a single large white / cream spot, approximately triangular in shape whose base is located in the median area of ​​the costa and whose vertex ends in the inner margin of the wing which is strongly fringed.
The rear wing is gray, also strongly fringed.

The strongly arched palps are brown or hazel with white / cream tips. Head and thorax are in the background color of the front wings while the abdomen follows the color of the rear ones.

Adults are visible from the end of June and July, and again from September.
The larvae undermine the leaves of their host plant. The mine begins with an unusually long corridor on the lower epidermal surface which often follows the midrib for some distance, but eventually it turns to the edge of the leaf, where a small spot is made.

***, **** The spot is initially completely epidermal, but later the larva begins to consume the leaf parenchyma, and the spot begins to develop. The older larvae leave the mine and continue to live freely under a fold of the leaf that has been tied with silk, at the end of the leaf which is thus transformed into a cone. Nymphosis occurs in a cocoon in the lower part of the leaf. ***, ****

The larvae feed on:
Myrica gale, Populus alba (White poplar), Populus candicans, Populus canescens (Gray poplar), Populus nigra (Black poplar), Populus tremula, Salix alba, Salix aurita, Salix babylonica, Salix cinerea, Salix dasyclados, Salix elaeagnos, Salix fragilis, Salix glaucosericea, Salix lanata, Salix magnifica, Salix myrsinifolia, Salix pentandra, Salix purpurea, Salix repens, Salix sitchensis, Salix spadicea, Salix x stipularis, Salix triandra, Salix udensis and Salix viminalis.


* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** The Casebearers of the Volga-Ural inter-river region (Lepidoptera, Gracillariidae)
*** Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Belgium - https://projects.biodiversity.be/lepidoptera/
**** Plant Parasites of Europe leafminers, galls and fungi - https://bladmineerders.nl/