Corythoxestis yaeyamensis

Description

Corythoxestis yaeyamensis is a moth of the family Gracillariidae, known from Japan (the Ryukyu Islands). The wingspan is 3.8-4.9 mm. The hostplant for the species is Saurauia tristyla. They mine the leaves of their host plant. It is a purely upper epidermal miner of leaves in the larval stage, and is pupated within a pupal chamber made inside the mine. The mine is linear, very long, irregularly curved, sometimes serpentine and transparently whitish in appearance, without any trace of frass. The pupal chamber is placed at the end of the mine either in the disc or at the margin of the leaf, ellipsoidal, with a swollen lower side and a wrinkled upper side.