Mirificarma cytisella

Mirificarma cytisella
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Gelechiidae
Genus:	Mirificarma
Species:	M. cytisella
Binomial name
Mirificarma cytisella (Treitschke, 1833)[1]
Synonyms
Lita cytisella Treitschke, 1833 Gelechia cytisella ab. roseella Hauder, 1918

Mirificarma cytisella is a moth of the Gelechiidae family. It is found from most of Europe (except Ireland, Great Britain, Fennoscandia, the Baltic region and part of the Balkan Peninsula) to the Ural Mountains.^[2]

The wingspan is 6–8 mm for males and 6-7.5 mm for females. The head is white to cream. The forewings are white to cream, mottled, sometimes sparsely, with brown scales. Adults are on wing from April to September.

The larvae feed on Cytisus nigricans, Genista, Calicotome spinosa, Ononis spinosa and possibly Laburnum anagyroides. They feed mostly from within two or three spun leaves,^[3] but sometimes the larva spins two leaves upon each other and partially mines them, resulting in a fleck type mine.^[4] Larvae can be found in June, September and October.

Subspecies

• Mirificarma cytisella cytisella
• Mirificarma cytisella leonella Amsel, 1959 (Portugal)

References

1. Fauna Europaea
2. Junnilainen, J. et al. 2010: The gelechiid fauna of the southern Ural Mountains, part II: list of recorded species with taxonomic notes (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). Zootaxa, 2367: 1–68. Preview
3. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History)
4. bladmineerders.nl