even more (Un)Pop(u)lar Mines

Nick Felstead recently emailed me some photos of mines on a hybrid Poplar near Magor, which were eventually IDed as Stigmella trimaculella thanks to help from George Tordoff.  This is a new species for VC35, although it is quite frequent in Cardiff and has clearly been overlooked here for a while.  I found it a couple of days later in Monmouth, and added it to the Dingestow list this morning.  Another miner of hybrid/Black Poplars, Ectoedemia hanoverella, remains on my list of targets...

 

My quick stop in Monmouth produced two other miners in addition to the S. trimaculella, both on White Poplar (Populus alba).  One was a rather scrappy Stigmella assimilella, new for VC35, with visible frass in the rather worn mine; the other was a flat-looking Phyllonorycter mine that I almost overlooked.  Subsequent investigation revealed a Phyllonorycter pupa with a parasitoid wasp pupa alongside, and checking the Phyllonorycter confirmed its ID as P. comparella (with the end two cremaster spines close together) new for Wales!

 

Another stop, on Friday morning, allowed a brief search of some of the huge Aspens on the edge of Vauxhall Field in Monmouth.  I was astonished not to find any Stigmella or Ectoedemia, but there were two old blotch mines with split undersides that I'm sure were Phyllonorycter sagitella (the undersides have a central crease so are Phyllo rather than fly mines).  This would be a new species for South Wales, so I'd really like to find a tenanted mine before recording it: one for next year...

Poplar miners are definitely under-recorded in Monmouthshire, and need to be sought presto pronto because most Poplars are dropping their leaves at the moment.  Leaf-base/petiole mining Ectoedemia on Grey Poplar and Hybrid Poplar would be new for the county, and I only have a couple of records of E. argyropeza on Aspen.  Phyllonorycter sagitella on Aspen would be an exciting find, there are very few records of Phyllocnistis unipunctella on Hybrid Poplar, and P. xenia on White Poplar would be thrilling.  It's all to play for!!!