The great warming continues. Each day brings more insects out.

The last couple of weeks has added two new Eupithecia to my list. They’re a tricky genus. There are dozens in BC, and many are very hard to tell apart. Well, let’s add a couple more.

The first, Eupithecia maestoso, looked sufficiently different from any other Eupithecia that I knew so I immediately started hunted around for a candidate ID. The distinctive dark bar on the abdomen, and the greenish hue was altogether wrong for Eupithecia graefi (not to mention the missing diagnostic brown wing dashes). Certainly nothing I already knew.

The second I ID’d as Eupithecia ravocostaliata, but I had noticed it was especially stark and chestnutty compared to other ravocostaliata I’ve seen. But today I got a cautionary note from Libby Avis about it. Apparently nevadata has lighter brown costal patches with that distinctive triangle-shaped, so she thought it the better candidate. I agree. Nice!