Friday 2 November 2012

Dare Valley Country Park, this Afternoon

A gloriously sunny afternoon at Dare Valley and searching the lower Sallows, I came across this larva:


Although it was small (about 10-15mm long) and fairly green and featureless, it has a prominent red anal plate and a dark line down the centre of its head. I have been through Porter several times without success (nothing unusual about that) and I've also been through the excellent, though not exhaustive larva section of Chris Manley's book, again with no luck. Anyone got any ideas?
If it helps, the larva seems to be associated with this leaf roll:


Another highlight, of a non lep kind was a Kidney-spot Ladybird, found on the underside of another Sallow leaf:


This was only my second record of this species.

3 comments:

  1. Mark - it has the look of a sawfly larva to me.

    Cheers
    George

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  2. You could be right. If I get the chance, I'll look in on it again and check. Thanks George.

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