Catocala promissa is also called the light crimson underwing in the english language. The Catocala genus has always been one of my very favourites among all moths. The adults are large and are mostly cryptically colored.
For most of my life, I have known this species as a member of the vast family of the Noctuidae which was, as far as I can recall, the largest family of Lepidoptera (the order that includes both butterflies and moths). But phylogenetic studies of the last decade, coupled with morphological characteristics, have resulted in a lots of change. And the erebids (a group of moths closed to Catocala) who were once regrouped within the Noctuidae are now in the Erebidae family that also includes, among others, the Lymantrinae and the Arctinae which were before families on their own.
This might seem casual taxonomy to you reader as taxonomy is a moving science like the others (something we may forget) but for someone like me who never followed dedicatedly insect taxonomy as I'm following carnivorous plants taxonomy nowadays, it was a bit overwhelming. I now do realize how someone who didn't follow, let's say Nepenthes taxonomy or Drosera taxonomy might feel out of the loop when confronted to the ongoing changes in Brasilian sundews or Philippines and Indochinese Nepenthes for instance. Puzzling indeed.
But that doesn't change a thing for our Catocala promissa of course. Nature does not care at all about our vain attempts to classify everything in small neat boxes. Whatever family it may belong to, the light crimson underwing remains a remarkable moth which, like other members of its genus, hide beneath cryptic forewings, a vivid coloration. Here an exquisite red mixed with black stripes. A trick to frighten a potential predator obviously.
So yeah, Catocala promissa is now an Erebidae... Yeah, right... I'll get used to that. In time. ;-)
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