Season (Adult / Immature):
National Status: Common
Local Status: Very common and widespread resident.
Local Record: Grade 3 adult, 2 leaf-mine See here for explanation
|Year first recorded||1904||1859||1883||1987||1883|
|Year last recorded||2014||2014||2015||2014||2013|
|Number of records||86||91||536||205||60|
|Number of individuals||183||73||244||50||7|
For the county, we have a total of 978 records from 684 sites. First recorded in 1859.
Most records are of leaf-mines.
Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: Widespread and usually common in all five vice-counties.
2013 (CHF): A common widespread species across the county where the mines on bramble are a familiar site. The main identification problem is to separate this species from the much rarer Stigmella spendidissimella. There is no single feature which is reliable to separate these two and for a positive identification the adult should be bred out. Records of mines are mapped here as aurella as this is by far the commoner species and the vast majority of these will be correct. A typical aurella mine has frass occupying more than half the width in the second half of the mine, does not cross its own track but often crosses the midrib. The larvae may remain active in the mine in winter so tenanted mines after October are always aurella as larvae of splendidissimella do not overwinter.