Species Cosmopterix clandestinella - Hodges#1475

Classification · Hodges Number · Explanation of Names · Identification · Range · Season · Food · Life Cycle · See Also · Internet References · Works Cited

Late May Cosmopterix - Cosmopterix clandestinella

Moore County leaf miner on Dichanthelium polyanthes D3127 2021 3 - Cosmopterix clandestinella

Moore County leaf miner on Dichanthelium polyanthes D3127 2021 5 - Cosmopterix clandestinella

New Hope Bottomlands leaf miner on Dichanthelium clandestinum D3734 Cosmopterix 2022 1 - Cosmopterix clandestinella

Show images of: caterpillars · adults · both

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)

Superfamily Gelechioidea (Twirler Moths and kin)

Family Cosmopterigidae (Cosmet Moths)

Subfamily Cosmopteriginae

Genus Cosmopterix

Species clandestinella (Cosmopterix clandestinella - Hodges#1475)

Hodges Number

1475

Explanation of Names

Cosmopterix clandestinella Busck, 1906

Cosmopteryx clandestinella Busck, 1906

Identification

See description and figures here.

Range

From Massachusetts and southern Ohio south to Virginia and North Carolina (Hodges, 1978 (1)), Michigan (fig. 273) (2).

Season

There are two generations, the adults have emerged from late May to early June and again in late July and August (Hodges, 1978 (1)). The specimens from Michigan are obviously from the second generation, the mines were collected in August and the adults emerged in May (2).

Food

Dichanthelium clandestinum (L.) Gould (Busck, 1906, as Panicum clandestinum) (Poaceae) (2).

Life Cycle

Leaf miner. The mine is an irregular longitudinal blotch mine with the frass ejected at one end. At maturity the larva cuts a circular piece out of the epidermis of its mine, which it bends lengthwise and uses for a cocoon exactly like the genus Cycloplasis Clemens (formerly in Heliodinidae, unresolved taxonomy) (Busck, 1906) (2).

See Also

Cosmopterix gemmiferella

Internet References

Moth Photographers Group (MPG) (3)

Works Cited

1.	The Moths of North America North of Mexico. Fascicle 6.1, Gelechioidea, Antequerinae, Cosmopteriginae, Chrysopeleiinae. Hodges, R. W. 1978. London: E. W. Classey Ltd. and The Wedge Entomological Research Foundation, 166 pp.

2.	The genera Cosmopterix Hübner and Pebobs Hodges in the New World Koster, J.C. . 2010. Zoologische Mededelingen 84: 251-575.

3.	North American Moth Photographers Group

Contributed by Charley Eiseman on 12 December, 2015 - 7:43am
Additional contributions by Kyhl Austin
Last updated 17 December, 2016 - 9:55pm

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