Dasineura miki (Kieffer, 1909)

Fjellberg, Arne & Fedotova, Zoya, 2024, New records of gall midges (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae) from Norway, Norwegian Journal of Entomology 71, pp. 8-94 : 61-62

* Dasineura miki (Kieffer, 1909)

Material: VE, Larvik: Stavern, Rakke , 58.980596°N 10.021179°E ± 300m, 24 July 2021, on Centaurea sp. , L, leg. SH , coll. NHMO; AK , Oslo: Sørkedalen, Finnerud , 60.030507°N 10.639427°E ± 10m, 7 August 2019, on Centaurea jacea, LMF , leg. HE, BOLD : NHMO-ENT-547994, coll. NHMO; 60.031721°N 10.640008°E ± 15m, 11 August 2022, on Centaurea jacea, LMF , leg. HE , coll. NHMO; OS , Jevnaker : SE of Ragnhildrud, 60.267528°N 10.478284°E ± 10m, 8 August 2020, on Centaurea jacea , L, leg. TS , coll. NHMO.

Biology and notes: The orange-yellow larvae live freely among the florets in the capitula of Centaurea scabiosa and C. nigra ( Asteraceae ). Infected flowers become somewhat stunted. Probably univoltine. Pupation and hibernation in the soil. Our material does not fit this description perfectly, as it was collected from Centaurea jacea , and our larvae were pink rather than orange-yellow. However, DNA barcoding of one larva collected at Finnerud in 2019 gave 100% blast match with Dasineura miki collected from Centaurea nigra in the UK ( Dorchin et al. 2019, supplementary material), and larvae from Denmark identified as Dasineura miki are also pink. We interpret our material as belonging to Dasineura miki and propose Centaurea jacea as a new host plant for this species.

Distribution: Only known from UK, Austria, Norway and Denmark.