''Stigmella erysibodea'' is a species of

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 ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

and has been observed in both the North and South Islands. The larvae of this species are

leaf miner 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 wasp ...

s and feed on the leaves of ''

Olearia ilicifolia ''Olearia ilicifolia'' is a shrub or small tree endemic to New Zealand. Common names include Māori-holly, mountain holly, ''hakeke'' or ''hākēkeke'' and New Zealand holly. It is a spreading shrub or small tree of the family Asteraceae, and has ...

'' and ''

Olearia albida ''Olearia'', most commonly known as daisy-bush, is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Asteraceae, the largest of the flowering plant families in the world. Olearia are found in Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand. The genus ...

.'' Adults have been observed on the wing in November and February.

Taxonomy

This species was first described in 1989 by Hans Donner and Christopher Wilkinson from specimens collected in the

Taupō Taupō (), sometimes written Taupo, is a town on the north-eastern shore of Lake Taupō, New Zealand's largest lake, in the central North Island. It is the largest urban area of the Taupō District, and the second-largest urban area in the Wai ...

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dis ...

and

Fiordland Fiordland is a geographical region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the westernmost third of Southland. Most of Fiordland is dominated by the steep sides of the snow-capped Southern Alps, deep lakes ...

regions. The male

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

specimen, collected at Lyttle's Flat,

Hollyford Valley Hollyford Valley is a valley in Fiordland, New Zealand, in the southwest of the South Island. It is named for the Hollyford River, which runs north-north-west along its length from the Southern Alps to the Tasman Sea. Beech forest dominates both t ...

on the 3 February 1976 "on ''

''" by J. S. Dugdaleis, is held at the

New Zealand Arthropod Collection The New Zealand Arthropod Collection is a collection of terrestrial invertebrates held by Maanaki Whenua – Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand.http://biocol.org/institutional-collection/new-zealand-arthropod-collection It specialises i ...

Description

Donner and Wilkinson described the adult male of this species as follows: Donner and Wilkinson also described the female of the species as follows: ''S. erysibodea'' is similar in appearance to '' S. atrata'', however it is smaller in size.

Distribution

''S. erysibodea'' is endemic to New Zealand. It has been observed in both the North and South Islands.

Behaviour

The larvae

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 plants. Adults have been observed on the wing in November and February.

Host

The larvae have been shown to feed on ''

'', a species that is endemic to New Zealand, and also ''

'', a south-eastern Australian species cultivated in New Zealand, as the moth has been successfully reared from both these plants''.''

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7616622 Nepticulidae Moths of New Zealand Endemic fauna of New Zealand Moths described in 1989 Endemic moths of New Zealand