Panthea (Walker, 1861)

Anweiler, Gary G., 2009, Revision of the New World Panthea Hübner (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) with descriptions of 5 new species and 2 new subspecies, ZooKeys 9 (9), pp. 97-134 : 117

Panthea acronyctoides species-group

The P. acronyctoides species-group contains a single species pair, P. acronyctoides and P. virginarius , with P. acronyctoides populations arranged into two subspecies. The male is characterized by the bulbous vesica armed with a pair of unequal-sized cornuti, the female by the globular or oval single chambered corpus bursae and a short wide ductus, about 2 × as long as wide. Both species have populations with a strongly contrasting black and white pattern, very similar in external appearance to each other and to the Palaearctic species P. coenobita (Esper) , but not found in any other North American species. The P. acronytoides group appears to be most closely related to the P. furcilla group. DNA cox -1barcode sequence data shows little differentiation within or between the two groups (Anweiler unpubl. data).