''Drasteria pulchra'' is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the family

Erebidae The Erebidae are a family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwings ('' Catocala'') ...

first described by

William Barnes William Barnes (22 February 1801 – 7 October 1886) was an English polymath, writer, poet, philologist, priest, mathematician, engraving artist and inventor. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect, and much other work, including a co ...

and James Halliday McDunnough in 1918. It is found in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, where it has been recorded from

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is 34–37 mm. The forewings have a black-brown basal area, slightly sprinkled with gray, this area is bordered by a darker line, irregular in course with a prominent inward angle below the median vein, followed by a rounded bulge and then bent strongly backward to the inner margin. The median space is ocherous, grayish brown at the costa and inner margin and crossed outwardly by a brown line. The reniform has the form of a dark lunate blotch bordered inwardly by an ocherous line. There is another line, bent strongly outwardly beyond the cell, forming prominent angles on veins 3, 4 and 6, bent backward below vein 3 to its base, then rounded and rather irregular to the inner margin. Beyond the reniform, there is some white shading especially on veins 3 and 4. The subterminal space is black brown bordered by a pale, quite regular line, parallel to the outer margin with slight inward bend in the submedian fold and preceded in the costal area by black dashes bordered outwardly by a dark line arising from an apical dark streak. The terminal area is violet gray with a marginal dark crenulate line. The hindwings are vermilion with a faint dark discal lunule, a narrow postmedian dark band curving downward at vein 2 to the anal angle, where it is thickest, and median and costal dark blotches on the outer margin.''Contributions to the Natural History of the Lepidoptera of North America''
Adults are on wing from June to July.

References

Drasteria Moths described in 1918 Moths of North America {{Melipotini-stub