Rhamphus pulicarius

During a Norfolk Moth Survey leaf-mining day in October 2018 I was shown leaf-mines of the micro-moth Goat Willow Leaf-miner Phyllonorycter dubitella. This is a scarcely recorded moth and I had not - and at the time of writing still have not - seen the adult, so I took a number of leaves home that had mines in the hope of rearing one through. This I failed to achieve, however in the spring when I brought the leaves in from outside a tiny (1.6mm) beetle emerged. I subsequently identified this as Rhamphus pulicarius, a species known to mine various tree and shrub species including willows. I had not noticed the Rhamphus mine on the leaves, so did not photograph it (I think I can probably see it on one or two of my photos of the Phyllonorycter mines, but it's out of focus and partly out of the shot).

Adult Rhamphus pulicarius is considered by Duff to only be separable from Rhamphus oxyacanthae on male genitalic characters, and this was a female, but the average differences described in Duff seem to fit pulicarius better than oxyacanthae and of coure the fact that it emerged from Goat Willow should mean it must be pulicarius (as oxyacanthae mines Hawthorn, Rowan and sometimes other rosaceous trees which I don't believe includes willows). I am not aware of any differences between Rhamphus species in female spermathacae but have included a photo below just in case there are any.

Note that the first two photos below show the live insect and the colours are correct. The specimen was unfortunately left on a window sill for most of 2019 (and possibly the next year or two) and faded badly, so the close-up photos below do not reflect its original colours.

female Rhamphus pulicarius showing faded vertex, pronotum, elytron and spermatheca, 14th April 2019, ex mine collected Lynford (Norfolk, UK), 13th October 2018