Coleophora pupa - Gelechioidea (Twirler Moths and kin) » Coleophoridae (Casebearer Moths)
Devine 06.28.2021
Yes, that looks rather like a Coleophora case too.
Many Coleophora larvae are leafminers. The feeding sign they leave behind is distinctive: small patches of mined-out leaf tissue, each with a single round hole in the epidermis, which is where the larva's case was attached while it was feeding.
So, when I find a Coleophora larva on a plant, I check for this feeding sign to help me figure out if the plant it's on is its host plant. It isn't always; prepupal larvae may wander for a while and as a result their cases end up in all sorts of interesting places that aren't their host plant. Once I found a larva boring into the broken end of a dead stem; it may have been trying to find a snug place to pupate.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend a blog post by Charley Eiseman in which he tracks a single Coleophora larva's movements and housing changes across the surface of a birch leaf:
bugtracks.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/birch-munchers-large-a...
… John van der Linden,
Coleophora pupa - Gelechioidea (Twirler Moths and kin) » Coleophoridae (Casebearer Moths)
Devine 06.28.2021
Yes, that looks rather like a Coleophora case too.
Many Coleophora larvae are leafminers. The feeding sign they leave behind is distinctive: small patches of mined-out leaf tissue, each with a single round hole in the epidermis, which is where the larva's case was attached while it was feeding.
So, when I find a Coleophora larva on a plant, I check for this feeding sign to help me figure out if the plant it's on is its host plant. It isn't always; prepupal larvae may wander for a while and as a result their cases end up in all sorts of interesting places that aren't their host plant. Once I found a larva boring into the broken end of a dead stem; it may have been trying to find a snug place to pupate.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend a blog post by Charley Eiseman in which he tracks a single Coleophora larva's movements and housing changes across the surface of a birch leaf:
bugtracks.wordpress.com/2016/09/18/birch-munchers-large-a...
… John van der Linden,