Phyllonorycter grewiaephilos

Habitat. Phyllonorycter grewiaephilos have been found in savannah areas at altitudes between 470 m and 920 m (Fig. 438). Host plant (s). Malvaceae: Grewia villosa Willd. (Figs 428, 429). Mine. An underside tentiform mine elongate or oval, 11 – 16 mm long. The mine is opaque creamy, or light brown. No folds are perceptible, frass loosely scattered; pupation without cocoon. Exuvium protrudes epidermis of a leaf before adult emerges. Mines were found locally but abundant in a small area of savannah within Tsavo National Park in Kenya in a period between 23 March and 12 April. The preimaginal stages within mines were in similar stadium of development. The difference of period between the first and the last moth emergence is 11 days. The plants are mostly exploited in the first half of the rainy season, when new leaves are well grown up. Pupa (Figs 136 – 141). The general form is elongated oval, sub-cylindrical, gradually narrowing towards last five segments, slightly fattened, light brown with a lighter shading on abdomen and darker on vertex; the pupa becomes slightly darker brown close to the adult emergence, like in most Lithocolletinae species. Length ca. 2.4 – 2.5 mm. Head more or less triangular, with two pairs of long setae and with loose antennal appendages. Vertex furnished with a frontal process (cocoon cutter), relatively short, broadly triangular, acute, with wrinkled median surface. The apices of the antennae and the apices of the wings approximately coincide at the same length. The appendages of antennae are shorter than the appendages of metathoracic future legs which extend slightly beyond the abdominal tip. The distance between the apices of the mesothorax and metathoracic legs is approximately 1.25 × the distance between the apices of the prothoracic and mesothoracic legs. Abdominal segments mostly covered dorsally and ventrally with dense minute spines; two pairs of setae (one dorsal and one lateral) present on each segment of A 2 – 7. Caudal sternum of A 10 with short, blunt plates arranged in a rosette and caudal tergum equipped with rudimentary cremaster, consisting of one short spine situated proximally and two blunt processes situated sub-distally. Flight period. Adults fly from early February to mid-April.