Blackberry Way

No, this isn't the layout of the Sepang Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix circuit. :)

It's the route taken by the larva of a silver moth as it munches its way through a blackberry leaf. The bramble leaf miner moth, Stigmella aurella, lays its egg inside the leaf. The caterpillar hatches and starts munching. As it grows the tunnel becomes wider. The dark line is known as the frasse, caterpillar poop to us. Eventually the caterpillar pupates. I photographed one of these mines the other day and couldn't understand why the fat end of the mine was glinting silver in the sunshine. It must have been a tiny moth emerging from its pupa.

There are many leaf mining insects. It's a leaf miner that came here in 2002 from Europe that is causing the leaves of our horse chestnut trees to go prematurely brown.

MrQ and I had to deal with the threat of Liriomyza species leaf miners from America when we grew chrysanthemums. They're notifiable pests.