Monday 10 February 2014

Larva on Broom: The Sequel

Despite the frequent showers, I managed to revisit the plants of Broom with the suspected larval mines of Trifurcula immundella and after only a few minutes searching, I found the first egg and in about ten minutes I found half a dozen more.

Trifurcala immundella Egg on Broom, Today

Later in the day, on my way back from a job, I detoured to Heolgerrig, Merthyr Tydfil, to a site I knew to have quite a lot of Broom and after a minute or two found and egg, then a few more. Thanks again both of you. George, your photos of the egg were invaluable.

7 comments:

  1. Excellent, well done Mark. I'd been thinking of checking a large stand of Broom south of Bedlinog (if it's still there) but now you've already found immundella at two sites it's not so much of a priority.

    Great to have a new VC record so early in the year.

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  2. I didn't find P. scopariella though. A few of the T. immundella mines had weathered and bleached, so were looking quite pale and grey. I will have to try and familiarise myself with that mine, then have another look. Broom isn't too common up here and I'm racking my brain, trying to recall where I've seen it growing.

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  3. Not much Broom down here, either. There are a few bushes in Hailey Park but all I've found on those is the wretched E postvittana...

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  4. Very nice find Mark. There are a few Broom plants in my area and i did check for larval workings a few years ago. I found some workings on the twigs but found nothing inside, so i tapped the plants in summer and found a couple of Leucoptera spartifoliella adults. Will have to check again.

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  5. Around here it doesn't seem to be too fussy about the quantity or quality of the broom, Paul. I have now found it at three sites, at only one of which was the population of broom more than half a dozen plants strong. The abundance of mines on most of the plants, a large proportion of which don't seem to have an egg associated with them has got me wondering how I am going to check for Leucoptera spartifoliella without disturbing too many T. immundella larvae in the process.

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  6. If it's any help Mark, the adults i tapped were easy to spot, as they are small but bright white. They would fly for a few seconds and then settle back very near to where they were tapped from. The elevation of my plants is 180M and the date was 24th July.

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  7. Thanks for the tip, Paul. The elevation of the Heolgerrig T. immundella mines is 400m.

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