Yorkshire Status: Very rare and local resident

We have few records of this species. There are three historical records:
1859 - H.T. Stainton in A Manual of British Butterflies and Moths mentions Scarborough ("common") and Middlesbrough as two of only four British sites.
1868 - Thomas Wilkinson in Theakston's Guide to Scarborough "a northern species occurring in the woods around Scarborough, and feeding in the larva state, on Luzula pilosa".
1883 - Porritt's list mentions that it occurs "on the Yorkshire side of Barnard Castle (J. Sang)".

It was not seen again for well over 100 years, but we now have two recent records:
6/6/2014 Hackfall Woods
3/6/2024 Tenterhill End Wood (Appleton-le-Moors)

This is a species of shady deciduous woodland, typically in river gorges, the larvae mining leaves of great wood-rush or sometimes hairy wood-rush. The larvae mine a fresh leaf after winter, creating a slender gallery which becomes a flat irregular blotch mine. The larva is orange-pink in colour. Adults are usually sufficiently distinctive to identify without recourse to dissection.

	Mine: Moth needs to be reared and, in some cases, possibly dissected.

Recorded in 5 (3%) of 200 10k Squares. First Recorded in 1859. Last Recorded in 2024. Additional Stats

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