Catocala californica, W. H. Edwards, 1864

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 : 52

Catocala californica syn. erichi Brower , syn. n.

Catocala erichi Brower, 1976

Catocala erichi ; Franclemont and Todd 1983: 129

Type material. Catocala erichi : holotype ♁ [ USNM, examined]. Brower’s (1976: 37) brief diagnosis stated that C. erichi was “well separated from francisca Hy. Edwards , and from the more northern complex of mariana, Hy. Edwards , edwardsi Kuznesov and eldoradensis Beutenmüller. Larvae of erichi (named for the chief collector), two broods, lost in the last instar the dark brown patch on the abdominal hump, while larvae of francisca kept their patch.” Our rearing work and comparison of types indicate that C. francisca H. Edwards, 1880 is conspecific with C. hermia H. Edwards, 1880 , not C. californica Edwards, 1864 ; and that C. erichi is an infrapopulational form of C. californica . Specimens referable to C. erichi occur sporadically throughout the geographic range of C. californica , but are most prevalent in the mountains of southern California. Th e larval character cited by Brower varies both geographically as well as within single broods of C. hermia and C. californica , and as Johnson and Walter (1984) more accurately reported, “[the] oblique, lateral patch on A5 and A6 [in erichi is] inconspicuous” i.e., not “lost” as stated by Brower. Type Locality: Green Valley Creek, San Bernardino M[oun] t[ain]s, Calif[ornia, USA].