Stem miner (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) in Alliaria

NOTE: An updated version of the following account, along with photographs showing this insect and its plant damage, is available at Some insects associated with weedy non-native and invasive plants.

I photographed a very young larva tentatively identified as Marmara sp. in a short, whitish, linear stem mine in late June. The larva's mine was later destroyed by an Ophiomyia sp. agromyzid larva mining the same stem (record 0034), and the gracillariid larva evidently did not survive the competition with the fly.