Stigmella aceris in the front garden

A nice mine to find, |Stigmella aceris on the Norway Maple of course. The only Stigmella known to occur on Norsway and Field Maple, there is a different species, Stigmella speciosa on Sycamore. The mine is filled with brown frass by this stage, my specimen does rather follow the vein a little more closely than in most photos on the web!

I could just about convince myself that I had found an egg at the start of the mine. The mine was paler at the far (expanded) end, perhaps where was less (or perhaps no) frass to fill the mine.

The larvae has been gone for many weeks of course - although I couldn't find an exit hole until I looked very carefully at the top surface of the leaf, where the final section of epidermis above the mine did appear to be missing.!