Subspecies Catocala badia coelebs - The Old Maid

assigned Hodges # 8776

Catocala badia coelebs Grote, 1874 (1), (2)

Catocala coelebs Grote, 1874 (3), (4), (5)

Subspecific epithet from Latin meaning "unmarried."

Wingspan 54-56 mm. (6)

Adult - forewing gray with light or heavy brown to black shading inside AM and ST lines; subreniform spot clearly defined, usually open on outer side and filled with brown. Hindwing with yellowish-orange and black bands of nearly even width [adapted from description by Charles Covell].

Larva - early instars dark bluish-gray with several black lines running length of body and extending onto head; mature larvae medium yellowish-brown dorsally with scattered white dots and contrasting white underbelly.

Maritime Provinces of Canada through Maine and northern New England, and westward to northern Michigan, Wisconsin and the Prairie Provinces of Canada. (1)

Grote specimen: St. Catherines [Ontario], August 18 (Geo. Norman Esq.). (3)

Boggy areas where food plants grow.

Adults fly from late July to early September.

Larvae feed on leaves of: (6)

sweetgale (Myrica gale)

northern bayberry (Morella pensylvanica)

wax myrtle (Morella cerifera)

sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina)

One generation per year; overwinters as an egg; eggs are laid on tree bark in fall, and hatch the following spring.

Ilia Underwing (C. ilia) has a white-rimmed reniform spot, usually less dark shading in median area of forewing, and orange or pink on the hindwing

Similar Underwing (C. similis) has a pale triangular apical patch along the costa, and a tear-shaped reniform spot.

Barnes, Wm. & J.H. McDunnough, 1918. Illustrations of the North American species of the genus Catocala. Memoirs of the AMNH 2(1): p.8; Pl.7, f.8. (5)

Grote, A.R., 1874. Remarks on North American Noctuidae with descriptions of new species. Transactions of the American Entomological Society 5: 96 (3)

Bill Oehlke's North American Catocala (6)