Ottawa (Dunrobin), ON Canada

19 August 2003   8:28PM EST  (left)
27 August 2005   8:45PM EST  (right)

Euxoa messoria, also known as the Reaper Dart, is one of about 20 Euxoa species recorded from the Ottawa area (J. D. Lafontaine, pers. comm., 2001), of which I have photographed only four at my location to date.  I find many of the Euxoa species difficult to recognize, in part because I seldom see them, and I am grateful to Dr. J. Donald Lafontaine of Agriculture Canada for identifying both of the specimens illustrated above.

Euxoa messoria has a brown forewing, somewhat grayish, with darker gray-brown and black markings.  The double basal, antemedial and postmedial lines are very clear on the specimen above at left, less so on the more worn specimen above at right, which had a patch of scales apparently scraped off from the middle of its left forewing.  The orbicular spot is oval, with a dark outline and brown to gray-brown filling somewhat paler than the ground color of the wing.  The reniform spot is also filled with brown to gray-brown, and may have some darker smudges in the filling.  A dark gray-brown shade, somewhat wavy, crosses the median between the orbicular and reniform spots.  The pale subterminal line, somewhat jagged, is preceded and followed by darker gray-brown shading, with a dark bar immediately preceding it at the costa.  The fringe is similarly gray-brown, as is the thorax.  The hindwing is whitish with some gray-brown shading along the outer margin, and a dark terminal line preceding the whitish fringe.  Covell (1984) indicates a wingspan of 3.5 to 4.0 cm for this species.

Handfield (1999) notes that Euxoa messoria is similar in appearance to Euxoa scholastica (not yet recorded at my location); identifications based on photographs alone should therefore be made with caution.

According to Covell (1984), the larva of Euxoa messoria is known as the Dark-Sided Cutworm, and is a pest of apple trees, cultivated vegetables and flowers, and a wide variety of other plants. For my general area, Handfield (1999) indicates an adult flight season from about mid-July nearly to the end of September.

My records to date for Euxoa messoria (each date representing "the night of") are in the table below: