Elachistidae

38.041 Glaucous Sedge-miner Elachista cinereopunctella (Haworth, 1828)

Notable B

Similar species:

Forewing: 3.5 to 4.5mm

Habitats: Sheltered calcareous or sandy areas.

Habits: Mined leaves are more common where the foodplant is in the shade of bushes or trees.

Foodplant: The larva mines a leaf of Glaucous Sedge or occasionally other sedges or Tufted Hair-grass. It makes a mine at the tip of a leaf and overwinters in the withered leaf tip. In early spring it mines down the leaf between the midrib and the leaf edge, producing a broad brownish line of frass. There may be more than one mine in a leaf, the larvae then occupying the whole leaf width. The larva is creamy-yellow, but paler above, with a greenish-white dorsal line and a red blotched dorso-lateral line along each side. It pupates on the upperside of a leaf along the midrib attached by a silk girdle.

On the European mainland it has also been recorded feeding on Fingered Sedge, Bird's-foot Sedge, Rare Spring-sedge, Blue Moor-grass, melicks and Carex pilosa.