Kingdom Animalia Class Insecta Family Plutellidae Scientific name Prays fraxinella | Phylum Arthropoda Order Lepidoptera Genus Prays Rank Species | |
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Similar Prays, Scythropia crataegella, Argyresthia goedartella, Paraswammerdamia lutarea, Yponomeuta plumbella | ||
Prays fraxinella, the ash bud moth, is a moth of the Plutellidae family. It is found in Europe.
The wingspan is 14–18 mm. Adults are on wing from May to June and again in August in two generations depending on the location.
The larvae feed on Fraxinus excelsior and Fraxinus ornus. They mine the leaves of their host plant. The mine consists of an irregular small corridor with dispersed black frass. Often the corridor widens in the end into an irregular blotch with much less frass. The mine may begin at an egg shell, but the larvae can leave their mine and start a new one elsewhere in the leaf. In the latter case the corridor begins with a small round opening. Before the leaf is shed the larva leaves the mine and bores into the bark, where it hibernates. After hibernation they live as shoot borer or free among spun leaves.
Prays fraxinella has two colour forms, the typical white and black colouration and the melanic form f.rustica.
Recently, the form f.rustica, that has an orange head has been separated into an entirely new species, Prays ruficeps.
