Moths of North Carolina
Scientific Name:
Common Name:
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View PDFNoctuidae Members:
Elaphria Members:
2 NC Records

Elaphria fuscimacula (Grote, 1881) - No Common Name

Taxonomy
Superfamily: Noctuoidea Family: NoctuidaeSubfamily: NoctuinaeTribe: ElaphriiniP3 Number: 932225.00 MONA Number: 9675.00
Comments: One of fourteen species in this genus that occur in North America north of Mexico (Lafontaine and Schmidt, 2010), nine of which have been recorded in North Carolina
Identification
Field Guide Descriptions: Online Photographs: MPG, BugGuide, GBIF, BOLDTechnical Description, Adults: Grote (1882); Hampson (1909)                                                                                 
Adult Markings: A medium-small, brownish Noctuid with strongly contrasting, black orbicular and reniform spots. The head, thorax, and the ground color of the forewings is pale tan, variably dusted with reddish or olivaceous. The basal and median areas are usually darker than the antemedian and subterminal areas. The antemedian and postmedian lines are both double and filled with the pale ground color. The antemedian is smoothly excurved but the postmedian is strongly curved around the reniform, becoming more evenly incurved below the cell. The orbicular and reniform are both conspicuously filled with black; the orbicular represented by a circular dot and the reniform by an upright figure-eight. The hindwings are fuscous and unmarked, although there is a fairly wide fringe of paler scales. Elaphria grata is somewhat similar in the course of its lines and shape of its spots but is more uniformly reddish-brown and the spots are not as contrastingly black -- the reniform in particular usually has a tan area between two black spots rather than a solid black figure eight.
Wingspan: 21-24 mm (Grote, 1882); 30 mm (Hampson, 1909)
Adult Structural Features: Reproductive structures have apparently not been described
Adult ID Requirements: Identifiable from good quality photos of unworn specimens.
Immatures and Development: Larvae have apparently not been described but photographs are provided by MPG and BugGuide, both of which show a fairly stout larvae with a somewhat truncated posterior and a pattern of broad, wavy lines. The color differs between the photos however, and the one on BugGuide shows a white dorsal stripe and a pair of contrasting sub-dorsal black spots that are not evident in the photo on MPG.
Distribution in North Carolina
Distribution: Our one record comes from the southern Coastal Plain
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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