Hello Tina,

Yes, you've got understood the determination characteristic I've described. Now I see that it is probably not very applicable. Nevertheless, these species seems me a bit unlike in some cases, so probably it is real to find the feature which will allow to distinguish certain (but not all) exemplares of B.robustana from B.lacteana/lancealana (in another worlds, can we find B.lacteana/lancealana with the same drawing as the third B.robustana on the first row in your collage).

I don't know any salty habitats in Moscow region, it is unusual for us. However, Bolboschoenys maritimus is mentioned as common plant of river walleys in the most useful book describing flora of the Middle Russia.

I'm afraid I've said to Andrey something like "This moth is very similar to B.robustana" when we've caught it and then made some photos (I've learnt our lepidoptera fauna by creating a file with the fotos of almost all of them, and I've not included any photos of B.lacteana/lancealana looked like B.robustana there). I've doubted this only after the revision of my photo-collection this autumn.

If lancealana and robustana are so similiar, can we at least say, that small and light-coloured exemplares of Bactra sp. from bogs, probably associated with Carex or Eriophorum, are B.lacteana? If these species are undistinguishable even by gen. det., probably they are just ecological forms? I've recently seen an article published in 2016 (after I'd questioned my friend obout that), where Maculinea alcon and rebeli have been described as two ecological forms and not as separate species. I'd like to discuss this question on the Forum 2, but probably you can start this discussion with more understandable post, after you will look at the article? Here it is: https://peerj.com/articles/1865.pdf

With best regards,
Ilya.