Family Erebidae   Hodges # 8867

Caterpillar foods: serviceberry, hawthorn, apple  (Oehlke)

Catocala mira, Catocala blandula and Catocala crataegi are very similar in appearance, and difficult to tell apart from photographs.  I’ve never seen a moth that I think is crataegi here, but I think we have both mira and blandula.  I’ve studied the information on Bugguide and MPG, and on Bill Oehlke’s Catocalas of Wisconsin site, and come up with a list of differences between these species.

– C. blandula has a dark brown basal area, as opposed to mira (pale), and crataegi (black)
– C. blandula has AM and PM lines that touch at the inner margin (they don’t touch in mira)
– C. blandula has a deep orange hindwing with an unbroken outer black band (band in crataegi is broken near anal angle)
– C. blandula has dark contrasting lines similar to crataegi (mira doesn’t have dark, contrasting lines)
– C. blandula PM line “falls back basally near the costa and where it meets the costa, it gives the appearance of a semi-circle above the reniform spot”  (Jason D. Roberts)
– C. blandula has less contrast of pale median area with darker basal area and inner margin than crataegi
– C. blandula has more brown in ST area than crataegi, less than mira

These are the moths I’ve seen that I think are C. blandula.

7/8/2016

7/26/2014

7/12/2014