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Project Noah Nature School
Marmara opuntiella
Pattern in a prickly pear leaf made by a leaf miner. "A leaf miner is the larva of an insect that lives in and eats the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies (Symphyta) and flies (Diptera), though beetles and wasps also exhibit this behavior." -Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_miner... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmara_opu...
Semi desert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_miner... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmara_opu...
Spotted on Dec 16, 2012
Submitted on May 3, 2013
11 Comments
Gracias Juan Carlos. A mi me llamó mucho la atención. Saludos.
Thank you Lauren.
Love this Luis. Leaf Miner patterns are fascinating. I've never seen one on cactus before.
Thanks Jakubko
Spectacular! This is awesome!
Yes I know John, thank you again.
Not sure it actually is that species - given that there could be more than one thing that do this, and we couldn't even dig up a picture of the mine. Maybe someone else out there will know more about gracillariids and might be able to comment.
Hi John La Salle, thank you very much for your ID and the links.
Hi Luis.
Lovely picture. I would agree with Lenny that it might very well be a moth - it certainly looks like a moth mine. I tried to come up with a similar picture - but couldn't find one. I did a Google search on "Opuntia Gracillariidae" and came up with a reference to a small moth which forms mines on Opuntia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmara_opu...
Unfortunately I can't seem to come up with a picture of the mine. Gracillariidae is a family of small moths which are primarily leaf miners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracillarii...
Thank you Lenny Worthington for the ID.
This was made by the larvae of a Leaf Mining insect.Most likely a moth.
Check wiki