If you have found the firethorn leaf-miner on Pyracantha in the UK, then I am interested in hearing from you, particularly if it is in an area outside that occupied by the moth in 1993.

Pictures of leaf mines and maps of the distribution of the moth in the UK can be found on this page.

I should like to emphasise that I have a full time research position at the University of Copenhagen which does not encompass collecting data on the firethorn leaf-miner - I am doing this purely out of interest, and in my spare time, so I can only do a limited amount. This means that I can't devote time to checking the identification of the moth or chasing up records, so I want to streamline the data-collection process as much as possible.

Hence, if you would like to send me an e-mail with a firethorn leaf-miner record, please include the following information:

1) Where the Pyracantha bush is - Ideally as a 6-figure OS grid reference, but if you give me an address I can probably get a reasonably good grid reference for it.

2) When you noticed the firethorn leaf-miner on the bush - This may well be the current date, but if you know for a fact that the bush has been infested for several years, please provide the date when you first definitely saw the leaf mines (this only needs to be accurate to the year).

3) A vague estimate of the density - By this I just mean whether there were many leaves with mines on the bush, several leaves with mines , or just one.

It's also useful to have negative records - If you have a Pyracantha nbush in your garden and are sure there are no firethorjn leaf-miners on it, then also let me know. It's obviously more difficult to say the moth is absent than to say that it's present in an arae, but it's still better to have nefgative records than no records at all.

Please e-mail you records to me at:

DRNash@bi.ku.dk

clicking on the above link should, in most cases, initiate an e-mail message to me

Many thanks for your help!

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