''Catocala coniuncta'' is a circum-

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

species of

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

whose range extends across southern

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

and extending to the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

. Its

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...

has for a long time been misspelled "conjuncta"; this was only corrected in 2010. Like other related species ''C. coniuncta'' has mottled brown fore-wings and crimson-red hind-wings with a black central line. The species differs from its European congeners in the shape of the post-median line on the fore-wing and the straighter black line on the hind-wings. The larvae feed on holm oak (''Quercus ilex''). Extra-limitally, ''C. coniuncta'' has occurred just once in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

, being found at light by Robin Harvey at the

RSPB Minsmere RSPB Minsmere is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) at Minsmere, Suffolk. The site has been managed by the RSPB since 1947 and covers areas of reed bed, lowland heath, acid grassland, ...

reserve on the

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

coast on 14 September 2004.Higgott, J. B. and Harvey, R. M., 2005. Catocala conjuncta (Esper, 1787) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) new to the British Isles. Entomologist’s Gazette. 56: 217-222 Following this record the English name Minsmere crimson underwing has been adopted.

References

External links

Minsmere crimson underwing on UKmothsFauna EuropaeaLepiforum.de
coniuncta Moths of Europe Moths of Africa Moths of Asia Moths described in 1787 Taxa named by Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper {{Catocalini-stub