Catocala neogama ssp. euphemia Beutenmüller, 1907

Gall, Lawrence & Hawks, David, 2010, Systematics of moths in the genus Catocala (Lepidoptera, Erebidae) IV. Nomenclatorial stabilization of the Nearctic fauna, with a revised synonymic check list, ZooKeys 39 (39), pp. 37-83 : 53

Catocala neogama ssp. euphemia Beutenmüller , stat. n.

Fig. 16 (lectotype)

Catocala euphemia Beutenmüller, 1907: 938

Catocala euphemia ; Barnes and McDunnough 1918: 16

Catocala euphemia ; McDunnough 1938: 115

Catocala euphemia ; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 128

Type material. Catocala euphemia : the original description indicates types at the “American Entomological Society, American Museum of Natural History, and Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science.” A male type is at the AMNH, and is designated as lectotype to clarify application of the name euphemia . Th e lectotype bears the labels “Carr Canyon / Huachuca Mts. / Cochise Co. Ariz.”, “H. Skinner / August 1905 ”, “Type / No. / A.M.N.H.”, “ Catocala / euphemia / Type Beuten.” Barnes and McDunnough (1918:16) noted that C. euphemia could “be merely a southwestern race of neogama (J. E. Smith, 1797) but as there is some slight difference shown in the male claspers, we treat it as a species until the larval history is known.” At the same time, they described C. loretta from south-central Texas as a new race that “would appear to be intermediate between neogama and euphemia ,” and suggested that the name euphemia be limited to the material from the Huachuca Mountains, Arizona, as has been done above. Although specimens of C. euphemia from Arizona and New Mexico are normally separable from specimens of C. neogama from the midwest and eastern United States, these two blend in the southcentral United States, particularly in Oklahoma and Texas; specimens referable to loretta mostly manifest toward the southern end of this blend. We have successfully reared larvae ex ovis from several broods of Arizona C. euphemia and eastern C. neogama , and have collected and reared many wild larvae of both taxa from various species of Juglans ; we have found no substantial differences between these larvae. Three fluid preserved larvae of C. loretta at PMNH, collected by R. Kendall on Juglans microcarpa Berl. in Uvalde County , Texas, are likewise indistinguishable from larvae of C. neogama and C. euphemia . Accordingly, we treat C. euphemia as a subspecies of C. neogama (J. E. Smith, 1797) . We refer material from Arizona, New Mexico, and extreme western Texas to C. neogama euphemia , and all other material to C. n. neogama (for analysis of C. loretta Barnes & McDunnough, 1918 see its entry below). Type Locality: hereby restricted to Carr Canyon, Huachuca M[oun]t[ain]s, Cochise Co[unty], Arizona [ USA] on the basis of the lectotype labels.