Trofimova et al. (2016) remarked as follows:
"Some authors treat the Asian dark form of abietis as a subspecies C. abietis argentata Bulter, 1881. Both forms are sympatric in the Central Siberia and further to Japan and Korea the dark form is transplaced by the European light form. Despite the geographical variability of external colour features, these forms have identical morphology of the male genitalia structure. Nine barcoded (COI 5' mDNA) specimens from Europe and European Russia as well as four dark form specimens show infra-secific barcode divergence of only 0.3% and therefore these forms are recognized here as only colour variations of C. abietis"