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The Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens) in my back garden had been mined extensively this summer. I took a few leaves on 5 July and kept them to see what emerged. On 11 July I found 8 small brown pupae on one of the leaves. These hatched into small black flies on 19 July, only 1 of which was obviously male. Here are photos of the leaf, the puparia and the male specimen which emerged. To my great frustration I lost the abdomen when I was detaching it to get a better look at the genitalia! Please review the following photos and confirm or correct my determination of this as Phytomyza petoei.

First the leaf in natural light.

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Next the leaf backlit with a close-up of one of the mines. The larva is visible at the top left end of the mine. I could see its jaws moving as it tunnelled through the leaf.

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Here are the puparia that I collected from the leaf...

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... and this is a close-up of one of the puparia, though it my not be the one from which the specimen that I have photographed came from.

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This photo shows the back of the male fly.

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Here is a view from the front.

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One wing was detached and photographed under a compound microscope. I have added a scale.

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This is a profile shot of the head.

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Using the keys in Spencer's RES Handbook Vol 10 Part 5g (free download from http://www.royens...art05g.pdf), in Agromyzidae (Diptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark and the info at http://www.ukflym..., http://www.leafmi... and www.bladmineerder... I think that this is Phytomyza petoei Hering, 1924. There are currently no records for this species on the NBN Gateway, presumably due to under-reporting. In the RES Handbook for the Identification of British Insects, Spencer gives its distribution as "Probably not uncommon in south".
I am hoping that this ID can be confirmed or corrected here.

Best wishes,
Martin

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OK, this is Phytomyza petoei Hering, 1924.

Miloš

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Thanks Miloš!