Ectoedemia heringella (Mariani, 1939)

new holm-oak pigmy

on Quercus

Quercus ilex, UK, Norfolk, Downham Market. 11.ii.2021 © Rob Edmunds

larva

Quercus ilex, UK, Cambridgeshire, Ely, 8.iii.2017 © Rob Edmunds

another image

mine

Egg at the upper side of the leaf, often near a vein. The mine is a strongly contorted gallery, almost entirely filled with black frass. Often many mines in a leaf.

host plants

Fagaceae, monophagous

Quercus alnifolia, x crenata, ilex.

In outbreak situations, but probably also under normal circumstances, also on Q. robur (van Nieukerken ao, 2010a).

phenology

Larvae from November till April (van Nieukerken, 1985a).

BENELUX

First record in Belgium in 2019 (Wullaert ao).

distribution within Europe

Mediterranean region from southern France, Corsica, Sardinia, and Italy to Cyprus; from 2002 on also in Britain.

synonyms

Stigmella heringella.

notes

Found by Martin Honey for the first time in Britain in 2002, in the gardens of Kensington Palace. Since then the species has rapidly expanded over the south of Britain, at the expense of the native Holm Oak. Some trees look browned from a distance (Prichard, 2005a). A road lined with monumental Holm Oaks in Kew Gardens is threatened by the feeding of heringella, in combination with Phyllonorycter messaniella en Stigmella suberivora (Times online, 2009).

The mines cannot be separated from those of E. haraldi and pseudoilicis.

references

Arenberger & Wimmer (1996a), Baldizzone & scalercio (2018a), Edmunds (2007a), Hering (1957a), Laštůvka & Laštuvka (1997a, 1998a), van Nieukerken (1985a, 1986a), van Nieukerken, Laštůvka & Laštůvka (2006a, 2010a), Pritchard (2005a), Sims (2008a), Skala (1939a), Steeman & Sierens (2022a), Triberti & Braggio (2011a), Wullaert, Recour & van Nieukerken (2023a).