Catocala carissima Hulst, 1880

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 : 45

Catocala carissima Hulst , stat. n.

Fig. 7 (lectotype)

Catocala carissima Hulst, 1880: 97

Catocala cara race carissima ; Barnes and McDunnough 1918: 31

Catocala cara ssp. carissima ; McDunnough 1938: 117

Catocala cara ssp. carissima ; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 129

Type material. Catocala carissima: Th e original description does not state the number of types. Several types are at the AMNH, and a male is designated as lectotype to clarify application of the name carissima . Th e lectotype bears the labels “Fla.”, “Collection / GDHulst”, “ Catocala / cara / var. carissima / Type Hulst.” Hulst (1880: 97) stated “We have a form of Catocala cara which is not found in the North and which seems to be the constant form in the South.” Specimens of C. cara and C. carissima are readily separable, and despite the fact that C. cara is principally northern and C. carissima principally southern, a zone of sympatry extends across much of the southern United States. Th e egg of C. carissima is consistently smaller than that of C. cara (eggs from several females of each taxon have been examined; this size difference is unusual among related species of Catocala ). We have never reared C. carissima from C. cara females, out of a half dozen broods from differing locations in the USA, and hence elevate C. carissima to species rank. Type Locality: hereby restricted to Fl[orid]a, [ USA] on the basis of the lectotype locality label.