Bucculatrix trifasciella Clemens 1866

Bucculatrix trifasciella Clemens 1866. Bucculatrix trifasciella Clemens, Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila. V: 147. Type $, Pennsylvania (probably Easton) [A.N.S.P., Type No. 7500].
1872. Bucculatrix trifasciella Stainton, Tin. No. Amer., p. 272.
1873. Bucculatrix trifasciella Chambers, Canad. Ent. V: 149.
1875. Bucculatrix trifasciella Chambers, Cin. Quart. Journ. Sci. II: 120. (Mere
mention. ) 1903. Bucculatrix trifasciella Busck, Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash. V: 220. 1873. Bucculatrix obscurofasciella Chambers, Canad. Ent. V: 150. Type 2,
Kentucky [M.C.Z.] ; "Type" 2, Kentucky [U.S.N.M.].
Face pale whitish ocherous, tuft reddish ocherous ; eye-caps white or tinged with ocherous, antennal stalk annulate with blackish brown. Thorax ocherous. Fore wings ocherous, marks (typically) silvery in male and sharply defined (fig. 15), dull whitish or pale ocherous in female, sometimes faintly dusted and not sharply defined (fig. 16). Three equidistant oblique costal streaks, the first from basal fourth, the third from two-thirds the wing length, its apex nearly meeting, at an angle, the tip of a similar dorsal streak from just before tornus; on middle of dorsal margin a blackish brown patch of raised scales extending to fold, preceded by a paler spot (never silvery), and followed by a patch of brown-tipped scales limited outwardly by the dorsal silvery (or pale ocherous) streak ; a blackish apical spot, preceded in the male by a few silvery scales ; in the cilia and not in contact with the apical spot, a line of dark-tipped scales, curving around apex and extending through the terminal cilia toward tornus, this line sometimes indistinct below apex. Hind wings and cilia fuscous in male, paler and more ocherous in female. Legs ocherous, fuscous shaded, hind tarsal segments broadly blackish-tipped. Abdomen fuscous above, ocherous beneath. Alar expanse 7.5 to 8 mm.
Male genitalia (tigs. 186, 186a). Harpes typical of the section, setose outwardly and sparsely inwardly, terminating' in a small pointed process, basal process present; socii short, broad, and widely separated, sinus between them shallow ; anellus with strongly sclerotized lateral rods ; aedeagus short, stout, with lateral rounded bulges before the narrow and acute tip; vinculum threadlike. Scale sac very large.
Female genitalia (figs. 185, 185a). Fringing scales of posterior margins of segment 7 long; on intersegmental membrane ventral to ostium, a semicircle of long specialized scales; on each side of ostium on sternite of 8, a large patch of specialized scales; minute specialized scales at anterior margin of tergite of 8 attached to a narrow transverse plate; margin of ostium outcurved and sclerotized. Spines of signum ribs long and slender (fig. 185a).
Specimens examined. — 21 3 . 2 9, and 25 sex not determined.
Pennsylvania: Easton (?), 3 type [A.N.S.P.] ; Hazleton, 1 8,2 9. July 13. 17. 29 (W. G. Dietz) [A.N.S.P.] ; 1 3, June 8 [Cornell U.] ; Folsom, 1 9, 5.7.91 [A.N.S.P.] ; Arendtsville, 1 (sex not determined), July 6. 1921, "on oak" (S. W. Frost) [A.N.S.P.].
New Jersey: IS, 3, 9 (probably W. D. Kearfott ) [U.S.N.M.] ; New Lisbon, 6, 8 , 9, June 11, June 18, three of these labeled " from small green larvae feeding naked underside scrub oak "; 1, " emerged August 31, 1938, leaf miner white oak, underside," 1, "underside oak leaves," emerged June 20; 1, August 7, 1938. "on oak"; 2 9, July 13, July 16, 1942; Whitesbog, 1 9, July 26, 1940 (E. P. Darlington) [A.N.S.P.]; Wenonah. 2 9, V.15.10 ( F. Haimbach) Kentucky: 9 type of obsatrofasciclla (V. T. Chambers) [M.C.Z.] ; 9 "type" of obscurofasciclla (V. T. Chambers) [U.S.N.M.] ; 1 specimen without locality label (from Chambers) [A.N.S.P.].
Ohio: Cincinnati, 1 8 , 1 9, rearing record B.654, on Quercus pahistris Muencbb., imagoes April 27, 29; 1 9, rearing record B.493, on Quercus palustris, imago August 27, from typical dark gray cocoon ; 2 8 , on oak, imagoes August 6; 1 8 , on Quercus bicolor Willd., imago July 19 ; 1 3 , " on red oak," imago July 9; 3 8 , 3 9, May 13 to June 26 ; 2 8, August 1 and 14; 4 8 , 2 9. rearing record B.2287, emerging from gray cocoons, April 26, April 30 (A. F. Braun) [A.F.B.Coll.] ; 1 $, 1 5, (A. F. Braun) [U.S.N.M.] ; Clermont County. 1 8 , June 27 ; Mineral Springs, Adams County, 1 8 , June 27, 1 9 , July 20 ( A. F. Braun) [A.F.B.Coll.] ; Fort Hill, Highland County, 1 9. rearing record B.2220, on Quercus rubra L. (Q. borealis maxima), imago April 22 (A. F. Braun) [A.F.B.Coll.].
Ontario: Sparrow Lake, 1 8,1 9, July 11. 17, 1926 (A. F. Braun) [A.F.B. Coll.].
No Locality: 2 3, nos. 570, 575. " Walsingham det." [A.N.S.P.].
The larvae of B. trifascieUa feed on leaves of various species of oak ; red oak, Onerous rubra L. (borealis maxima), in many localities appears to be the preferred food plant. Feeding usually takes place on leaves high up in the tree. The mine is similar to that of packardella, the moulting cocoons (both first and second) somewhat larger than those of packardella; the exposed larva may feed on either the upper (B.493 and B.654) or the lower side of the leaf. The cocoon (fig. 53) broad and stout, with six or seven ridges, is characterized by the fusion or anastomosis of ridges; it may be either dark gray (as described by Clemens) or pale gray or even whitish. In the generation emerging in the summer (i.e. in the same season) the cocoon is generally spun on the underside of a leaf, often on the same leaf with the mine and eaten patches.
Specimens occur in which the markings are obscure and not lustrous in the male ; such specimens, if reared, can definitely be assigned to trifascieUa by characters of the cocoon — its shape and number of ridges, and often by its gray color.
This species is closely allied to B. quinquenotella Chambers, but in quinquenotella the markings are silvery in both sexes, and a fifth silvery spot is present basad of the patch of raised scales. Other points of differentiation are enumerated under quinquenotella.

Bucculatrix trifasciella is a moth in the family Bucculatricidae. It was first described by James Brackenridge Clemens in 1866 and is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Ohio and Ontario.

The larvae feed on Quercus species. They mine the leaves of their host plant.