Yellow-triangle Slender Caloptilia alchimiella
This graceful little moth belongs to a family with an appropiate name: Gracillariidae. The larvae of many species live inside leaves all their lives, or at least during the first stages. The Yellow-triangle Slender for instance mines the leaves of oak. Half-grown it gets to the outside of the leaves. It will fold a leaf up into a cone, in which it will spend the rest of its life. Yellow-triangle Slender is on the wing from May to August and is very common in woods containing oak. There is a look-a-like species: the New Oak Slender (Caloptilia robustella) and it is very hard to tell the two apart. Both will reach a wingspan of 10 to 13 mm.
