''Stigmella aceris'' 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

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, incl ...

found in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

. It was first described by

Heinrich Frey Heinrich Frey (June 15, 1822 – January 17, 1890) was a German-born Swiss entomologist who studied Lepidoptera. He was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and died in Zurich, Switzerland. He is not to be confused with the dipterist Richar ...

in 1857. The moth flies from May to June and again in August depending on the location and has a

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

of 3.7–4.7 mm. Larvae

mine the leaves A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths ( Lepidoptera), sawflies (Symphyta, the mother clade of wasps ...

of its food plant making a narrow corridor usually filling the entire width of the corridor with

frass Frass refers loosely to the more or less solid excreta of insects, and to certain other related matter. Definition and etymology ''Frass'' is an informal term and accordingly it is variously used and variously defined. It is derived from the G ...

. Eggs are laid on field maple (''

Acer campestre ''Acer campestre'', known as the field maple, is a flowering plant species in the family Sapindaceae. It is native to much of continental Europe, Britain, southwest Asia from Turkey to the Caucasus, and north Africa in the Atlas Mountains. It h ...

''), Amur maple ( ''A. ginnala''), Norway maple ( ''A. platanoides'') and Tatarian maple ( ''A. tataricum''). There is some debate as to whether the moth mines the leaves of sycamore ( A. pseudoplatanus'') with ''Plant Parasites of Europe'' stating that it is never found on sycamore and ''UKmoths'' stating it is found on sycamore.

References

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Species info
Nepticulidae Moths described in 1857 Moths of Europe Taxa named by Heinrich Frey {{Stigmella-stub