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Photo#1563587
Unknown Dunes Moth - Drasteria eubapta

Unknown Dunes Moth - Drasteria eubapta
Algodones Dunes, Imperial County, California, USA
March 29, 2017
At lights on edge of dunes.

Moved

Good job on the ID, Tim and J&J
I posted another image, as this appears to be a rare species:

   


I'm glad you guys were able to ID this one. Having looked into it more, there are lots of similar-looking candidates in Drasteria and Bulla that I might have gotten tripped-up on...assuming I would have gotten that far ;-) Seems that having a view of the hind wing pattern really helps tack down the ID. The very complicated treatment in Richards(1939) would have been too intractable for me to use effectively for an ID...but here's his entry for D. eubapta, and image as Fig. 19 of Plate IV.

Powell & Opler don't mention this species, but they do mention that a congener, D. howlandi, is associated with Eriogonum as its host plant genus...and there's an interesting endemic dune shrub, Eriogonum deserticola, that is one of the dominant plants of the dune habitat at Algodones.

Thank you both!
The visual match in pattern & color with the MPG images, the BOLD page here (corresponding to the thumbnail in J&J's comment below), and the post here is perfect, and the locality is very much in synch with those records for Drasteria eubapta...and this Essig Museum record.

Glad to have a name for this beauty...so I can search out more about it (wonder what the host plant is?).

Must be close to 8617

MPG
Edit - We're late - but at least we reached the same conclusion!

Drasteria eubapta ?
Drasteria eubapta ??

If so, nice find!!!

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