Uknown Larvae - Porphyrosela minuta

Moved

Moved from Porphyrosela.
I carefully reviewed the Bentancourt & Scatoni paper, and everything here matches their descriptions perfectly. The larvae you photographed are evidently 2nd or 3rd instar, before metamorphosing into the more caterpillar-like later instars which have legs and aren't so flattened. Of course, someone still needs to get specimens to Don Davis in order to properly document the presence of this species in North America.

… Charley Eiseman, 28 November, 2014 - 9:36am

Moved

Moved from Leaf Blotch Miner Moths.

… Charley Eiseman, 19 November, 2012 - 8:42am

Moved

Moved from Unidentified Leaf Mines.

… Charley Eiseman, 23 September, 2012 - 1:51am

bup? might be something in the Trachyini

Moved from ID Request.

… v belov, 17 September, 2012 - 11:02am

Unknown Larvae

It's a moth. I just put up five new images 11 days after the larvae were first discovered in the grass and about 8 days after being placed in a plastic vial. Perhaps someone is familiar with this moth.

… Greg Dodge, 19 September, 2012 - 1:00pm

Ross Hill's suggestion...

of Porphyrosela desmodiella seems reasonable to me, but I don't know much about adult leafminers and we should wait for Terry to weigh in. I do think it's safe to say it's a gracillariid. P. desmodiella is recorded from a few different legumes, but is supposed to always make an underside tentiform mine as far as I know, not a flat upperside mine like this. The other day in South Dakota I found mines similar to this in black medick (Medicago lupulina), which I mistook for clover at first. I was guessing they were made by a Parectopa of some sort, but after seeing this I'm reconsidering. Hope I get an adult out of mine too.

… Charley Eiseman, 21 September, 2012 - 6:18pm

says Henry Hespenheide:

"It looks beetle-ish, but I don't know of any taxa/species that use clover as a host. Desmodium is the closest bup miner host, and the species that mines that genus has a very different mine (I've reared it in Connecticut). You might contact Dave Wagner at the Univ. of Connecticut -- he's the lep leaf-miner expert. Urge Greg to rear it. That's always the best way to ID an unknown miner."

… v belov, 17 September, 2012 - 11:28am

Interesting

I hope you can toss a few of the (unopened) leaf mines into a Ziploc freezer bag and rear them through. My guess is that they are moth larvae (definitely not Diptera, and they look too small to be beetle larvae...but could be). If they are leps, I don't recognize the mine or the larva on this host.

… Terry Harrison, 10 September, 2012 - 12:23pm