Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada

Species Profenusa thomsoni - Amber-marked Birch Leaf Miner

Unknown Hymenopteran - Profenusa thomsoni Sawfly - Profenusa thomsoni - female Birch leafminer? - 1 - Profenusa thomsoni Birch Leafminer? - 2 - Profenusa thomsoni Trumpet mine on birch sapling - Profenusa thomsoni Bog Birch, blotch leaf mine with larva - Profenusa thomsoni River birch leaf mines - Profenusa thomsoni Profenusa thomsoni - Amber-marked Birch Leaf Miner - Profenusa thomsoni
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)
No Taxon ("Symphyta" - Sawflies, Horntails, and Wood Wasps)
Family Tenthredinidae (Common Sawflies)
Subfamily Heterarthrinae
Tribe Fenusini
Genus Profenusa
Species thomsoni (Amber-marked Birch Leaf Miner)
Other Common Names
Birch Leaf Miner
Explanation of Names
Profenusa thomsoni (Konow 1886)
Size
4 mm(1)
Range
native to, and widespread across the Palaearctic(2), adventive in NA and now transcontinental in the north(1)
Season
Late May to Jul, may continue to emerge late into Aug(1)
Food
hosts: primarily, Betulaceae, common on a number of birch species (Betula)(1)
Life Cycle
Adults lay eggs in the leaf tissues. The larvae mine the leaves, forming light-colored blotch mines. Up to 40 larvae were found in a single mine. When all the leaf tissue is mined, regardless of the larvae age, they vacate the mine and drop to the ground. Only the latter part of the 5th instar enter the soil the survive.(3)
Remarks
Introduced to NA early 1900s; spread westward, reached AB by 1970, reached Anchorage, AK ca. 1996
Internet References
Species pages: anon. [AB](1) | Soper et al. (2009) | Ellis (2007) (Europe)(4) | Edmunds (2007) (UK)(5) | Pitkin et al. (2007-) (UK)(6)