''Macrosaccus coursetiae'' is a
moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...
of the family
Gracillariidae
Gracillariidae is an important family of insects in the order Lepidoptera and the principal family of leaf miners that includes several economic, horticultural or recently invasive pest species such as the horse-chestnut leaf miner, ''Camerar ...
. It is known from
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...
in the United States.
The
larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
Th ...
e feed on ''
Coursetia glandulosa
''Coursetia'' is a large genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. Members of the genus, commonly known as babybonnets, are shrubs and small trees native to the Southwestern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, ...
''.
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
...
the leaves of their host plant.
Larvae are parasitized by ''
Chrysocharis walleyi'', a parasitoid wasp in the family (
Eulophidae
The Eulophidae are a large family of hymenopteran insects, with over 4,300 described species in some 300 genera. The family includes the genus '' Elasmus'', which used to be treated as a separate family, "Elasmidae", and is now treated as a su ...
).
References
Moths of North America
Lepidoptera of the United States
Moths described in 2017
Leaf miners
Taxa named by Donald R. Davis (entomologist)
Taxa named by Charles Eiseman
{{Lithocolletinae-stub