Leucania insueta Guenee

Leucania insueta Guenee 1852 (Type)

Heliophila adonea Grote 1874 (Type)

Heliophila dia Grote 1879 (Type)

Leucania heterodoxa Smith 1894 (Type)

Leucania mimica Strecker (1899) (Type)

Leucania megadia Smith 1902 (Type)

Diagnosis:

Eastern populations: Forewing brown with a slight reddish tinge. Forewing shape rounded. Veins heavily accented with light brown. A dull, white line runs from the base of the forewing to the discal dot and is accented below with black for about one-half of its length. Postmedial line represented by a series of distinct black dots. Hindwing with the base light (particularly in males) with the outer third shaded with dull gray-brown.

Western populations: In general dark, much grayer, with the veins not as heavily accented with light brown. Hindwing completely suffused with gray-brown.

Distribution: Leucania insueta occurs throughout most of the United States and southern Canada except for the southeastern and south-central United States. The northern range stretches from Newfoundland in the east to southeastern Alaska in the west.

Identification Quality: The relationships between insueta and the Old World species Leucania comma and between insueta and its western populations are unclear. There significant differences among all of them in superficial appearance but the male and female genitalia are similar in all cases. The differences between the typical eastern insueta and its western populations seem to follow a clinal variation. Conceivably the populations of inseuta are all races of the Old World Leucania comma. Alternatively insueta may represent a group of related New World species. Both the eastern insueta and the European comma occur at the same localities in Newfoundland. It would be very intresting to seek natural hybrids between the two "species" at these localities. The name insueta refers specifically to northeastern North American populations. Numerous other synonyms are available for western populations.

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