Coleophoridae

37.025 Highland Case-bearer Coleophora glitzella Hofmann, 1869

Notable A

Similar species:

Forewing: 5 to 6.5mm

Habitats: Open woodland, lower slopes of mountain moorland and in glens.

Habits: The moth flies in the evening.

Foodplant: The larva makes a frass filled mine on a leaf of Cowberry. The mine often on a leaf margin, loops back on itself or is widened to form a large blotch. In the late autumn it makes a small, 2 to 2.5mm long, irregularly cylindrical ova case. It then overwinters. In the spring it feeds on the underside of a leaf, then forms a fresh oval case 3 to 5mm long, in which it feeds until it aestivates in May, resuming feeding in the autumn, overwinters a second time, then feeds in the spring before making the third and final bivalved case, which is 6 to 8mm long, m.o. at a 90° angle. It can mine large areas of the leaf, because after securing its case, it can leave it to mine the leaf. It travels to a fresh leaf for pupation on the leafs surface. In Europe it overwinters the first year in the mine and makes a case in the following April, then feeds up rapidly making the second of only two cases before pupating the same year.