Moths of North Carolina
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View PDFErebidae Members:
Catocala Members:
2 NC Records

Catocala unijuga Walker, [1858] - Once-married Underwing

Taxonomy
Superfamily: Noctuoidea Family: ErebidaeSubfamily: ErebinaeTribe: CatocaliniP3 Number: 930797.00 MONA Number: 8805.00
Comments: One of 103 species in this genus that occur in North America (Gall and Hawks, 2010; Kons and Borth, 2015a,b), 67 of which have been recorded in North Carolina. Belongs to Group X of Barnes and MacDunnough (1918), a large group of poplar- and willow-feeding species. Except for marmorata, this group occurs primarily north and west of our area.
Identification
Field Guide Descriptions: Covell (1984); Beadle and Leckie (2012)Online Photographs: MPG, BugGuide, GBIF, BOLDTechnical Description, Adults: Barnes and MacDunnough (1918); Forbes (1954); Sargent (1976)Technical Description, Immature Stages: Forbes (1954); Wagner et al.(2011)                                                                                 
Adult Markings: A large, powdery Underwing, with blue-gray forewings and orange- or crimson-and-black banded hindwings. The ground color of the forewings is pale gray, mottled with white and dark gray. The antemedian is dark and waved, the postmedia dark and dentate, and the subterminal regularly dentate and contrastingly filled with white. The reniform is fairly diffuse. No other species in our area is similar in pattern.
Wingspan: 70-90 mm (Sargent, 1976)
Adult ID Requirements: Identifiable from good quality photos of unworn specimens.
Immatures and Development: Larvae are gray with a reddish hump on A5; the side of the head has strong black striping that joins across the vertex (Forbes, 1954)
Larvae ID Requirements: Identifiable from good quality photos, especially where associated with known host plants.
Distribution in North Carolina
Distribution: Recorded only in the eastern Piedmont and Outer Banks in North Carolina
County Map: Clicking on a county returns the records for the species in that county.
Flight Dates:
 High Mountains (HM) ≥ 4,000 ft.
 Low Mountains (LM) < 4,000 ft.
 Piedmont (Pd)
 Coastal Plain (CP)

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