How did you identify this?

Well, I have puzzled over these that both Terry Hibbitts and I see rather frequently. I asked him to collect some of his for me to send to BOLD but he has never given me any specimens. I think his are usually more red then mine and more boldly marked. I posted these as tentative pending BOLD ID, but never got samples from him.

I tried to keep notes when Ed Knudson gave me opinions on photographs. I have one dated 6/23/16 in which he suggested P. atropurpuralis. He said P. grotei was different, P. napealis was a gray critter, and P. atropurpuralis is confined to Central Texas. His checklist includes all of those species PLUS P. morenalis

BUT he said to send it to BOLD before posting to BG.

This photo was from 2014 and this specimen was not sent to BOLD. I had intended to send some from Terry.

Thanks for the clarification. I gues we can leave this as a tentative ID for now.

My wild guess is an un-described species near P. roseivestalis. It resembles closely related examples from Central America in BOLD:AAH5736. (The info on that page is messed up. There's a typo somewhere which associates the BIN with a Diptera species.)

Steve, After the controversy I am moving back to Pyrausta despite the fact that I stick to my species determination.

If you look at that Texas range dot it is smack dab over where Terry Hibbitts and I are collecting. Also, note the light "wave" on the hindwing.

As I mentioned in my other reply I don't think I went to the spread pages since this one was clearly in our range. Both Napealis and zonalis have the light wave on the hindwing, both could be in Texas and the undescribed species that you found has a darker hindwing, does not have the wave and is out of the country as well.

Hopefully we will get a specimen collected soon so BOLD can solve the mystery.

Your moths and those submitted by Terry do not match the descriptions for napaealis/zonalis. Links to the original descriptions are on the Info pages for both species. Those species do not have red wings and napaealis in particular has a pale band between the pm. line and the outer margin. I mention zonalis because it seems that Gary McDonald's images demonstrate that there is overlap. Jim Moore's image posted under napaealis here has brown scales that approach red so I can't exclude the possibility though I would be very surprised if yours and Terry's turn out to be that species.

I didn't think your example above was in roseivestalis, although it's not impossible, or in the BIN that I referenced. My point was that it looks like this may be an un-described species and my wild guess is that it may be closest to roseivestalis. Although I agree that the examples in BOLD:AAH5736 have hindwings that are inconsistent with your, roseivestalis seems fine. I am speculating that there is another closely related species.

I see now another possibility. BOLD shows an example from Texas listed as Pyrausta grotei here. It is in its own BIN. Bear in mind that there are four BINs with examples labeled as grotei and one of those BINs contains nicalis. Three of them, one of which includes the one I referenced, are closely related with less than 2% distance. Since the records are not public, I can't tell how closely related grotei and nicalis are. They may represent a complex and there seems to be lot variation.

That said I do see some differences which don't seem consistent with grotei. Terry's images in particular show dark scales along the outer edge of the am. line and along the inner edge of pm. line. This seems more constant with roseivestalis. His image here is nearly identical to Randy Hardy's image of roseivestalis here. Hugh McGuiness comments on Randy's image "...Your moths matches Munroe's description very well, so I think you are correct."

You have two examples posted and Terry has three. They are all similar but I can't say with any confidence to what species they belong or even if they are the same species. MONA fascicle 13.2b is the only source of which I am aware that has the info that would help but I don't have a copy of it and I'm not sure how much help it would be anyway as it is now 40 years old. I suspect that we will not know until the next fascicle comes out which I understand is still a couple more years away.

So how's that for a long-winded I don't know?

Well, this has been interesting! I actually like your P. grotei suggestion! I don't know HOW you do all this one BOLD, I have tried to follow your instructions and will have to go back and play with it some more.

Thanks for spending so much time on this. I may send my pictures to Ed Knudson since he is the person who identified that BOLD specimen and there is nothing about the location where the moth was captured.