Eriocrania semipurpurella

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Eriocrania semipurpurella
Eriocrania semipurpurella01.jpg

Eriocrania semipurpurella

Systematics
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Subordination : Glossata
Superfamily : Eriocranioidea
Family : Debris moths (Eriocraniidae)
Genre : Eriocrania
Type : Eriocrania semipurpurella
Scientific name
Eriocrania semipurpurella
( Stephens , 1834)

Eriocrania semipurpurella is a small butterfly from the family of the dragon moths . The caterpillar mines in leaves of birch trees.

features

butterfly

The moths reach a wingspan of 10 to 16 millimeters. The forewings are metallic purple-bronze-colored with scales sprinkled in light gold-colored scales. They have a triangular, sometimes whitish, sometimes golden, transverse spot on the rear edge behind the middle of the wing, this can be indistinct or even absent. The hind wings are predominantly gray-bronze in color, with a purple sheen towards the rear end. The scales of the hind wings are long and narrow. The head has an erect clump of light scales. The thorax and abdomen are colored gray, the antennae are brown, they are longer than half the length of the forewing. In the fore wing the vein R (radius) behind the cell R-Cu is divided into four branches up to the edge (subgenus Eriocrania see str.), Branch R3 is missing.

The species is very similar to Eriocrania sangii , with which it often occurs together. The species can only be distinguished by genital morphology.

Caterpillar

The footless caterpillar is colored white with a brown head capsule, which is usually somewhat retracted into the semitransparent prothorax . In contrast to the adults , the caterpillars are easily distinguishable from those of Eriocrania sangii , these are clearly gray in color. Young caterpillars can be distinguished from those of Eriocrania unimaculella by a sclerotized, pungent darker colored gray plate on the thorax behind the head. Older caterpillars lack this plate; like those of E. unimaculella , they are pure white behind the head capsule. The only distinguishing feature are two small, difficult to see appendages on the side of the first abdominal segment in E. unimaculella , which E. semipurpurella lacks. The caterpillar has a functional larval eye, which is unusual for a miner. The larvae are up to 8 mm long.

Way of life

The caterpillar is miner in birch leaves . The females lay their eggs in the buds that break open. The mine begins at the edge of the leaf and expands into a space mine. Long tracks of manure can be seen in the backlight in the mine. The caterpillar can usually be found in our fresh leaves in May. After the feeding time, the caterpillar leaves the mine and falls to the ground. It spins a cocoon in the upper soil layers, in which it pupates in the following midsummer. The pupae overwinter. The flight time of the moths is in April, in the north to May.

In northern Sweden the species is only more common every other year. This is an indication of a semi-volatile life cycle in which a caterpillar takes two years to develop, in the boreal region. A semivoltine cycle is also given from China.

The species is widespread and usually the most common of its kind. In spring, the related Eriocrania sangii and Eriocrania unimaculella appear in the same habitat at the same time, often in association with it .

The proboscis of the species is short but functional. The species can use it to soak up liquids. It is controversial whether the species feeds regularly in the imaginal stage. The sexes are found using pheromones . Five different types of receptors have been detected, only two of which detect a pheromone and three of them detect substances with an antagonistic effect. These are probably used to distinguish between females of related species who use very similar pheromones in order not to use up resources unnecessarily.

Economic importance

The species is common on birch species but is usually meaningless as a pest . In Central Europe they can completely destroy the leaf shoots with mass reproduction, but this without permanent damage to the tree. In a Finnish mountain birch forest near the Kevo Subarctic Research Station, Eriocrania caterpillars made up around 25 to 30 percent of the herbivore's biomass, around four fifths of which is Eriocrania semipurpurella .

distribution

Eriocrania semipurpurella is widespread in the Holarctic . She lives in central and northern Europe, including the UK frequently and in Ireland . It is absent in most of the Mediterranean, but occurs in Romania . In Germany it can be expected nationwide and has been proven in almost all federal states.

Evidence is also available for Canada, USA (Appalachia), China, Japan, for example.

Phylogeny, Taxonomy and Systematics

Different systems are in use for the Palearctic Eriocraniidae, after examination of the skeletal muscles all species are in the genus Eriocrania. to unite. According to another opinion, this genus should be split up.

There are indications that this species could actually be a complex of morphologically extremely similar cryptospecies , but these have not yet been characterized or described.

The following subspecies are described:

  • Eriocrania semipurpurella subsp. pacifica in northwestern North America (Alaska, Vancouver Island, Washington). A foam sparrow species ( Holodiscus discolor , family Rosaceae) is specified as the caterpillar forage plant .
  • Eriocrania semipurpurella subsp. alpina .

The species was first described by Stephens as Lampronia semipurpurella . It is the type species of the genus. Scientific synonyms are Eriocrania amentella (Zell, 1850), Eriocrania inconspicuella (Wood, 1890)

swell

  • GS Medvedev: Keys to the Insects of the European Part of the USSR .: Lepidoptera. IV, 1. Part 1. translates to BR Sharma. Oxonian Press, New Delhi 1987.
  • J. Heath: The British Eriocraniidae and Micropterygidae. In: Proceedings and transactions of the South London Entomological and Natural History Society. 1957, pp. 115-125. (on-line)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lepiforum.de
  2. ↑ MA Kurz, ME Kurz, HC Zeller-Lukashort: New and interesting butterfly finds from Salzburg and Upper Austria (Lepidoptera). In: Journal of the Association of Austrian Entomologists. 45 (3/4), 1993, pp. 113-116.
  3. ↑ F. van de Meutter, C. Steeman: Eriocrania sangii, new for the Belgian fauna (Lepidoptera: Eriocraniidae). In: Phegea. Volume 38, number 4, 2010, pp. 121–124.
  4. ↑ Raupe at bladmineerders.nl ( Memento of the original from July 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bladmineerders.nl
  5. ↑ key to Eriocranium leafminers on Suffolk Moths Blog
  6. ↑ Walter Hackmann: About the structure and location of the ocella in leaf-mining caterpillars. In: Acta Zoologica Fennica. 34, 1942, pp. 1-37.
  7. ^ David V. Alford: Pests of Ornamental Trees, Shrubs and Flowers. 2nd Edition. Manson, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-84076-162-7 , p. 208. Preview on Google Books
  8. ↑ British leafminers
  9. ^ The leaf and stem mines of British flies and other insects.
  10. ↑ Karl Traugott Schütze: Biology of the small butterflies. 1931. New edition online
  11. ↑ H. Bylund, O. Tenow: Long-term dynamics of leaf miners, Eriocrania spp., On mountain birch: alternate year fluctuations and interaction with Epirrita autumnata. In: Ecological Entomology. 19, 1994, pp. 310-318. doi: 10.1111 / j.1365-2311.1994.tb00247.x
  12. ↑ a b c Z. K. Xu, HL Xiao, XH Liu: A new subspecies of genus Eriocrania (Lepidoptera: Eriocraniidae) and its bionomics. In: Acta Entomologica Sinica. Vol. 33 No. 3, 1990, pp. 351-354.
  13. ↑ IFBCommon: A new family of Dacnonypha (Lepidoptera) based on three new species from southern Australia, with notes on the Agathiphagidae. In: Journal of the Australian entomological Society. 12, 1973, pp. 11-23. (P. 20)
  14. ^ A b Mattias C. Larsson, Eric Hallberg, Mikhail V. Kozlov, Wittko Francke, Bill S. Hansson, Christer Löfstedt: Specialized olfactory receptor neurons mediating intra- and interspecific chemical communication in leafminer moths Eriocrania spp. (Lepidoptera: Eriocraniidae). In: Journal of Experimental Biology. 205, 2002, pp. 989-998.
  15. ↑ Davis W. Alford: Color Atlas of the pests on ornamental plants. Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-432-27841-1 , p. 189.
  16. ↑ Janne Riihimki, Pekka Kaitaniemi, Kai Ruohomki: Spatial responses of two herbivore groups to a geometrid larva on mountain birch. In: Oecologia. 134, 2003, pp. V203-v209. doi: 10.1007 / s00442-002-1082-6
  17. ↑ Tony Davis: A Review of the Status of Microlepidoptera in Britain. Butterfly Conservation Report No. S12-02. Butterfly Conservation, Wareham, UK 2012.
  18. ↑ UK moths
  19. ↑ László Rákosy, Marin Goia, Zoltan Kovacs: Catalogul Lepidopterelor României / directory of butterflies Romania. Societatea Lepipderologica Romana Cluj-Napoca 2003.
  20. ↑ Eriocrania semipurpurella. with butterflies in Germany.
  21. ^ GR Pohl, CD Bird, JF Landry, GG Anweiler: New records of microlepidoptera in Alberta, Canada. In: Journal of the Lepidopterists Society. 59 (2), 2005, pp. 61-82.
  22. ^ A b c Donald R. Davis: A Revision of the North American Moths of the Superfamily Eriocranioidea with the Proposal of a New Family, Acanthopteroctetidae (Lepidoptera). In: Smithsonian contributions to zoology. Number 251, 1978, pp. 1-131.
  23. ^ Y. Imada, A. Kawakita, M. Kato: Allopatric distribution and diversification without niche shift in a bryophyte-feeding basal moth lineage (Lepidoptera: Micropterigidae). In: Proceedings of the Royal Society. B vol. 278 no. 1721, 2011, pp. 3026-3033. doi: 10.1098 / rspb.2011.0134
  24. ↑ Mizukawa, Hirowatari, Hashimoto: A new species of the genus Eriocrania (Lepidoptera, Eriocraniidae) from Japan. In: Transactions of the Lepidopterological Society of Japan. 57 (3), 2006, pp. 149-155.
  25. ↑ J. Birket-Smith, NP Kristensen: The skeleto-muscular anatomy of the genital segments of male Eriocrania (Insecta, Lepidoptera). In: Journal for Morphology of Animals. 6 (2), 1974, pp. 157-174.
  26. ↑ Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and some other life forms

Web links

Commons : Eriocrania semipurpurella  - collection of images, videos and audio files