Diario de glennfine

See specimen here

In Fascicle 27-2 Don Lafontaine tells us that “Euxoa catenula can be distinguished from tronella and all other Euxoa species by diagnostic characters of the genitalia. The highly distinctive harpe is very short - less than half as long as the saccular extension, very markedly incurved and C-shaped, and slightly expanded apically with a dense cluster of setae at the apex. The shape of the vesica also is unique in that the apical portion has a row of four or five pouches in the wall distal to the median diverticulum. Females have the unique combination of a dense border of setae sub-basally on the ovipositor lobe and an apical flange-like projection. The only other species that have a dense border of setae on the ovipositor lobe are members of the terrena, serricornis, and annulipes species-groups; females in these groups do not resemble those of catenula in wing markings, and the ovipositor lobe has a sclerotized rim along the posterior margin rather than an apical flangelike projection.”

We are also told that most “specimens of catenula have pale whitish-gray forewings, often with a slight pink suffusion. Specimens from southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, differ from specimens from other areas in that the forewing ground color is smoky gray and heavily dusted with dark gray; this population was described as lindseyi by Blackmore. This population may warrant a subspecific name, but I do not formally recognize it as such here because there is tendency in other species to have darker forms in coastal British Columbia; additional material of catenula from western British Columbia is needed to determine the status of this form.”

As far as color form goes, my experience so far shows that I see more of the dark form than the light. Males and females can be light or dark and they fly together here in the Eddy Mountains from late August through late September.

Here's an aberrant female Abagrotis trigona

Here's a male/female comparison of Abagrotis trigona