Hantsmoths

Local in hedgerows, scrub and gardens throughout much of England and Wales. Fairly widely distributed in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight, with the characteristic leaf mine, a narrow gallery filled with reddish frass following the leaf-margin and then expanding abruptly into a blotch with the frass, now blackish, deposited irregularly in the centre (MBGBI Vol 1), often found wherever significant growths of the foodplant grow. The adult is only confirmable by dissection of the genitalia. The larva mines leaves of Hawthorn, over-wintering as a pupa.