This are so hard to I'D, MissSherry. Bill Oehlke has started a database of the Catocalas, and I helped him obtain the one prepared for Oklahoma. It's still not set up in the form like the Sphingids. You have to go thru them one by one.

The thing about Catocalas is that they are so many similarities between the species. One I thought it looked similar to were Catocala umbrosa, C. ultronia, C. Christina, C. cara, and C. amatrix.

They are so pretty and I love that photo displaying the 'underwings'.

I found a Catocala cat one time. It was long and skinny compared to other cats I've seen. If you see one, no matter the species, you'll know it's an underwing. They are very strong and thrash around a lot, which kinda freaked me out at first. I thought it was something from Jurrasic Park!

Anyway, I've attached one of Bills pages on a Catacola that looks a bit like yours and you can wander thru the other pages at your leisure.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Catocala ultronia

Well, you know that I don't know which one it is, but I think it's a really pretty moth. This year, I am growing Moonflower for them on my front porch.

Glad to hear Bill is still at it; I submitted a sphingid photo a few years back to his site.

The underwing showed up on the porch again today, and I got a poor picture of it with its wings closed. It's since flown off - they flit around more in the day than most moths.

With the picture of it with its wings closed, I could compare it with pictures in my moth books and pictures on the internet. I'm positive now that it's an ultronia underwing or dark red underwing, a very common underwing moth that uses cherry, which is everywhere around here. I've actually only found one underwing caterpillar, and that was years ago. They blend in well with bark.

Sherry

Very pretty! Glad you posted it.

Elisabeth