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There are three species of leaf-mining caterpillars found on bamboos in Southeast Asia, where they are a minor pest usually kept under control by the many parasites and predators that normally attack them. An example of one of these is Glyphipterix semiflavana, which mines the leaves of Phyllostachys in China and Japan. It has one generation per year. The adult moths emerge in spring and lay eggs among the newly growing leaves. The eggs hatch, releasing larvae that burrow into the newly formed leaves, where they begin mining out the interior of the leaf, working their way toward the tip, where they exit and then move on to another leaf. By summer the larvae have matured and form pupae where they remain until spring.

In the Southeast we have leaf miners that feed in a similar manner (but continue laying eggs on into early summer) on Arundinaria gigantea and in my garden also feed on the leaves of Chusquea (culeou, gigantea, valdiviensis), Borinda boliana, Fargesia nitida, Phyllostachys heterocycla pubescens, Sasaella masamuneana albostriata, Thamnocalamus (crassinodus, tesselatus), and Yushania (anceps, aff. chungii, maculata, maling). They are minor pests that prefer to feed on the first few large leaves that appear on the end of new shoots and major branches.