InsectNet forum

What moth is this?

Light trap 20 miles North of Chattanooga, TN, 10th of July.

My thought is that this is someone's "artistic" facsimile of Catocala relicta form Clara although, the hindwing band is not blue but white and I have never seen forewings have such prominent bands on them; only partial bands.

That being said it does not exclude the possibility of a specimen having such prominent bands on the forewings. Perhaps, the reason they're impression of the hindwing band appearing blue colored was because that is the way it appeared in whatever lighting was present.

Only C. fraxini of Europe has blue colored bands present on the hindwings.

Trehopr1 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 9:00 pm My thought is that this is someone's "artistic" facsimile of Catocala relicta form Clara although, the hindwing band is not blue but white and I have never seen forewings have such prominent bands on them; only partial bands.

That being said it does not exclude the possibility of a specimen having such prominent bands on the forewings. Perhaps, the reason they're impression of the hindwing band appearing blue colored was because that is the way it appeared in whatever lighting was present.

Only C. fraxini of Europe has blue colored bands present on the hindwings.

Agreed - might the white hindwing bands of C. relicta appear blue under UV, or perhaps MV light? UV and MV can certainly make some colors look strange. As for the forewings of this specimen - I too, have never seen such prominent banding on the forewings of this species.

Incidentally, are there any Noctuoidea (even small species) in the US that have blue on the hindwings? I can't think of any.

Indeed, I made mention in my reply that perhaps the person who viewed this specimen saw it under abnormal lighting such as via black light or mercury vapor light.

Outside of collecting catocala I do not collect any other Noctuidae so I cannot say whether or not there exists a species with bluish colored bands/markings in the US.

Was the specimen retained? Could we see a photo of it spread, and of the underside?

jh

OK, time to solve the riddle

Unfortunately, the specimen does not exist. It had been created through a "generative machine learning model". Generative means that this piece of software can create new things. It has been created using the Dall-E model, all I did was type "Blue Catocala" and wait for about 120 seconds for the program to create 9 artificial images and I chose the best. You can access the model here: https://www.craiyon.com/

I had posted it here in insect identification to see how experts with a lot of experience would react to the image when not knowing that it is artificial. It was interesting to see that it did match a few things that were known, but it still looked strange and confusing and no clear ID could be given. Yet we tried to match it with something known beforehand.

About the image I find it amazing that the model knows more or less what a Catocala is.

The next striking thing is that the background, which has also been artificially created, resembles a light sheet. So most pictures of moths online are taken on light sheets.

I see that Trehopr1 suggested some artistic input, me being a reputable collector posting it in insect identification might have lead people astray.

The topic can be moved to Open Topics if a discussion unfolds. Thank you all.