Animalia > Arthropoda > Insecta > Lepidoptera > Gracillariidae > Caloptilia > Caloptilia murtfeldtella

Caloptilia murtfeldtella

Wikipedia Abstract

Caloptilia murtfeldtella is a moth of the Gracillariidae family. It is known from Missouri, Washington, California, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio in the United States. The wingspan is about 18 mm. The larvae feed on Pentstemon hirsutus, Pentstemon laevigatus and Pentstemon peckii. They create a stem gall. One or more galls may occur per stem, but only one larva inhabits each gall. The galls occur low on the stem. When full-grown, the larva chews a tunnel outwardly through almost the entire wall of the gall, leaving only the external epidermal layer as a round, externally visible window. It then spins a cocoon, one end of which is anchored to the bottom end of the gall, the other end is spun so as to encircle the window. The species overwinters in the adult stage.
View Wikipedia Record: Caloptilia murtfeldtella

Prey / Diet

Penstemon hirsutus (hairy beardtongue)[1]
Penstemon laevigatus (eastern smooth beardtongue)[1]
Penstemon peckii (Peck's beardtongue)[1]

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0