Coleophoridae

37.063 Gorse Case-bearer Coleophora albicosta (Haworth, 1828)

Common

Similar species:

Forewing: 5.5 to 7mm

Habitats: Downland, heathland and other sites where the foodplants are present.

Habits: The moth flies during the day especially in the afternoon and at dusk. It occasionally comes to light.

Foodplant: The young larva bores into a seed pod and feeds on the unripe seeds of Common Gorse. It then leaves the pod in mid-August and constructs a cigar shaped case from a fragment cut from a calyx lobe. This brownish hair coverd case is about 7mm long, m.o. at a 45 to 60° angle. It then bores other seed pods from the side until it is full-fed. In November it abandons its autumn case, hides in a lower calyx lobe below a flower and constructs a fresh trivalved case from silk. It then overwinters in the gorse flower. If the larva becomes separated from its foodplant while still in the autumn case, it will just attach it to a stem and overwinter in that (and never make the silk case). It pupates in April, in whatever case it is in, without further feeding.