Agrochola helvola
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
Agrochola helvola, the flounced chestnut, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. The species is found in most of Europe, north to Scotland and Fennoscandia up to the Arctic Circle, south to Spain, Sicily (it is not found on Sardinia), Greece further east to the Middle East, Armenia, Asia Minor, western Turkestan and central Asia up to central Siberia.
The wingspan is 34–45 mm. The colour of its forewing is either dull or bright red with inner, outer, and submarginal lines brownish, formed of lunules between the veins, those of the inner line more continuous; a distinct brownish angulated median shade. Its stigmata is usually very indistinct, of the ground colour or slightly darker, with paler annuli. Its hindwing is grey, with costal and terminal areas and the fringe generally ochreous or rufous. The basal area before inner line and the space between outer and submarginal lines are darker, forming more or less prominent bands.
The dull reddish examples with these bands well-developed are typical helvola; the bright red ones are rufina L.; — catenata Esp. is a moth in which the space between the outer and submarginal lines is not filled up with darker colours, so that the dark lunules forming those lines are more conspicuous; the examples with a greenish grey or ochreous ground colour, with the bands also developed are ab. ochrea Tutt; — those with a yellowish ground and purplish-brown bands are punica Bkh. The lines and bands are often obscured and semiobsolete. These less-marked forms with dull reddish ground colour are unicolor; — with bright reddish ground colour called rufa Tutt; — and with greenish ochreous ground colour called extincta Spul.; sibirica Stgr. from Central Asia, has pale yellow forewings; cinnamomea Fuchs has much grey suffusion, the area beyond outer line has darker brown; specimens from Amasia, though reddish in a few cases, mostly females, are generally much paler than European, dull brownish or ochreous-grey, with indistinct or obsolete markings; in particular the hindwings
are much whiter with the grey and rufous suffusion usually slighter and more restricted in area. The egg is initially reddish yellow becoming, before hatching, a reddish-light-brown hue showing white spots and a yellowish egg base. The caterpillars are coloured yellow-brown or red-brown, have thin, white dorsal and dorsolateral lines and wide, white, sharply limited lateral stripes as well as whitish point warts. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bavarian Forest National Park | 🇩🇪 Germany |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Flounced Chestnut sighting in Bavarian Forest National Park on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 964th most-seen of the 1115 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and September–October
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Flounced Chestnut in Bavarian Forest National Park on a given day, against under 5% in June–August and November–April, the lowest months.
Between 9 pm and midnight
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Flounced Chestnut sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is seen both by day and at night.
Only Bavarian Forest National Park, in our data
Bavarian Forest National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Flounced Chestnut sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Flounced Chestnut is recorded against all the insects logged in Bavarian Forest National Park (5 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
