| Ectoedemia hadronycha | |
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| Species: | E. hadronycha |
| Binomial name | |
| Ectoedemia hadronycha Hoare, 2000 [1] | |
Ectoedemia hadronycha is a moth of the family Nepticulidae and belongs to the Fomoria subgenus of Ectoedemia . [2] It is endemic to Australia, where it is found along the north-eastern coast of Queensland. [1]
Moths are a polyphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of which have yet to be described. Most species of moth are nocturnal, but there are also crepuscular and diurnal species.
Nepticulidae is a family of very small moths with a worldwide distribution. They are characterised by eyecaps over the eyes. These pigmy moths or midget moths, as they are commonly known, include the smallest of all living moths, with a wingspan that can be as little as 3 mm in the case of the European pigmy sorrel moth, but more usually 3.5–10 mm. The wings of adult moths are narrow and lanceolate, sometimes with metallic markings, and with the venation very simplified compared to most other moths.
In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
The larvae feed on Capparis arborea , of which they mine the leaves. Eggs are found on the upper side of the leaves. [2]
Capparis arborea is a bush or small tree occurring in eastern Australia. The habitat is rainforest; usually riverine, littoral or the drier rainforests. Distributed from the Hunter River, New South Wales to Cape Melville in tropical Queensland. Common names include native pomegranate, wild lime, wild lemon and brush caper berry.
A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies, and flies (Diptera), though some beetles also exhibit this behavior.
