Ottawa (Dunrobin), ON Canada

3 June 2005   9:40PM EST  (left and right)
Both photos are of the same specimen.

Eucosma gloriola is one of about a dozen species of Eucosma that have been recorded from the Ottawa area (J.D. Lafontaine, pers. comm., 2001).  My thanks to Dr. Jean-François Landry of Agriculture Canada for confirming my identification of the specimen above, which was collected and given to the Canadian National Collection in Ottawa.  This specimen has also been included in the All Leps Barcode of Life project of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph.  Additional information on Eucosma gloriola has been gleaned from Internet resources, in particular Lehmann, Rayanne D.  1996.  "Eastern Pine Shoot Borer, Eucosma gloriola Heinric [sic]", Regulatory Horticulture Entomology Circular No. 181, vol. 22, no. 2, Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture (available on the Internet).

The forewing of Eucosma gloriola is a coppery red-brown in color, most intense towards the costa and base, and very smooth in appearance.  A slightly wavy, double silver-gray band crosses the wing in the medial area.  A second, narrower, double silver-gray band crosses the wing farther out, from costa to anal angle.  The fringe is grayish white.  The head and thorax are mainly white.  Lehmann (1996) indicates a wingspan of 14 to 16 mm.

According to Lehmann (1996), the larva of Eucosma gloriola, also known as the Eastern Pine Shoot Borer, feeds in the pith of pine shoots, especially eastern white pine and Scotch pine.  She notes that, in Pennsylvania, the adult moth emerges about the time of Scotch pine bud break, late April or early May.  The adult flight season might reasonably be expected to be somewhat later in more northerly areas such as Ottawa.

My only record to date for Eucosma gloriola (each date representing "the night of") is in the table below: