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The intricate and convoluted patterns of Leaf Miners are always fascinating. Burrowing and eating under the covers is one way to feel protected until a wasp finds it. Leaf Miners can be found among moth, fly and beetle larvae. The consensus so far is that this one is a fly in the family Agromyzidae.
Forest, Finca Argovia, Ruta de Cafe, Soconusco area of southern Chiapas, Mexico. About 1 hour from Tapachula.
Spotted on Nov 21, 2015
Submitted on Mar 20, 2016
6 Comments
Great John! Can't wait!
With the backlighting you can also often see the miner larva and pupae, and sometimes parasitoid pupae - which can be quite distinctive. Some of them have black pupae, and they are quite easy to spot with the light behind them.
Charley, Thank you for what you said about backlighting the leaves to better see the frass pattern. I'll start backlighting with a flashlight :)
Thank you Charley and John. Leaf Miner's patterns are so interesting! I was reading that the mine patterns are usually species specific. There are hundreds of species and it would be amazing to create a database matching species with larval feeding patterns.
I would agree with Charley that it is probably an agromyzid. It is an herbaceous plant for one thing (gross over-generalization, but leafminers that look like this on herbaceous plants tend to be agromyzids, and those on trees and woody plants tend to be moths).
This one was probably made by a fly (Agromyzidae), but a backlit photo that shows the frass pattern more clearly might change my mind--it could also be a moth of some sort.