Case-building Lepidoterans?

[Doug Yanega]

><karl.wilding at gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:1114197638.054955.75520 at z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>  Could someone help me out with the identity of a 'pest' that has been
>>  nibbling holes in the leaves of strawberry plants in my garden. I've
>>  got a freshwater entomology background so was a little surprised by
>>  this creature.
>>
>>  Initially I thought an old grass seed-case was on the leaf, but closer
>>  inspection revealed the 'seed' was actually a caddis-like case made of
>>  small pieces of plant remains.
>>
>>  The case is less than a centimetre long, and only a couple of mm wide.
>>  I live in Woking, Surrey, UK (in case taht's of any use). Did it crawl
>>  up the pot and onto the leaf, or hatch from an egg on the leaf and set
>  > about making a case out of pieces of the strawberry leaf?

Actually, on that sort of plant, you might also have a chrysomelid 
beetle larva; there are a few groups (especially the subfamily 
Cryptocephalinae) that make cases.

Peace,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

 
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