''Ectoedemia heckfordi'' is a

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

of the family

Nepticulidae Nepticulidae is a family of very small moths with a worldwide distribution. They are characterised by eyecaps over the eyes (see also Opostegidae, Bucculatricidae, Lyonetiidae). These pigmy moths or midget moths, as they are commonly known, inc ...

. It is only known from

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, having been discovered in 2004 at the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

's Hembury Woods by amateur naturalist Bob Heckford, for whom it is named. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

is 4.8–6.2 mm. Adults are on wing from April to May. There is one generation per year. The bright green larvae feed on oaks, ''

Quercus petraea ''Quercus petraea'', commonly known as the sessile oak, Welsh oak, Cornish oak, Irish oak or durmast oak, is a species of oak tree native to most of Europe and into Anatolia and Iran. The sessile oak is the national tree of Ireland, and an un ...

'' and ''

Quercus robur ''Quercus robur'', the pedunculate oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native plant, native to most of Europe and western Asia, and is widely cultivated in other temperate regions. It ...

''. They

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun M ...

the leaves of their host plant. In April 2010, Heckford presented the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

to the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

in London. Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_male_genitalia.JPG, Male genitalia Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_male_genitalia2.JPG, Male genitalia Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_female_genitalia.JPG, Female genitalia Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_female_genitalia2.JPG, Female genitalia Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_female_terminal_abdominal_segment.JPG, Female terminal abdominal segment File:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_larva.JPG, Final instar larva on ''Quercus petraea'' Image:Ectoedemia_heckfordi_leafmine.JPG, Leafmine

References

External links

Fauna EuropaeaWestern Palaearctic Ectoedemia (Zimmermannia) Hering and Ectoedemia Busck s. str. (Lepidoptera, Nepticulidae): five new species and new data on distribution, hostplants and recognition
Ectodemia Dartmoor Moths of Europe Moths described in 2009 {{Ectoedemia-stub