Leaf Miner Up Close

 Leaf Miner Up Close You may find the leaves in your garden with pale patches. This is often due to a Leaf Miner. The culprit may be a cater...

 Leaf Miner Up Close

You may find the leaves in your garden with pale patches. This is often due to a Leaf Miner. The culprit may be a caterpillar, beetle larvae, or fly larvae.  It can be further identified by a good microscope. 

The miner lives between the epidermis of the leaf. 

I hooked up my microscope to get a closer look at the insect within the leaf. The pale yellow green area is the top of the insect:

Here's the latest "live" video. i think it is beginning to slow down, so we may see in pupate tonight. 

Highlights

Sometimes it is easier to see the action when you speed up the motion. Like the character in Mystery Men, "sometimes you must go right to go left". In this case it makes sense.

Up close and sped up 20x

Here's is another highlight that illustrates the "mining" i.e. eating by the larva. 

Here is what the photo microscope setup looks like:

---