Gelechiidae

35.067 Loosestrife Miner Monochroa conspersella (Herrich-Schäffer, 1855)

pRDB2

Similar species:

Forewing: 5 to 6mm

Habitats: Fens and marshes.

Habits: The moth comes to light.

Foodplant: In the autumn the larva mines a lower surface blotch with a brown centre, often near the tip of a leaf of Yellow Loosestrife. The blotch has short gallery extensions. In the spring after overwintering, the larva makes a spinning in a terminal shoot and mines down the stem for up to two centimetres. It occasionally eats young leaves. It pupates in the leaf litter.