Moths of this family are found in the desert regions of the south-western United States,[1] including Arizona, Nevada and California.

[2] The species was initially described in Lepidoptera: Geometridae: Eupitheciini as Eupithecia deserticola McDunnough 1946.

[3] However, due to earlier use by Eupithecia deserticola Turati (1934)[4] as a different species from Libya, the name combination was then considered preoccupied for nomenclature.

This led Clifford D. Ferris and Vladimir G. Mironov (2007)[5] establish Eupithecia jamesi Ferris & Mironov, 2007 as a replacement name making E. deserticola McDunnough a junior secondary homonym.

[7] They treated Eupithecia jamesi Ferris & Mironov, 2007 as junior objective synonym of E. zekiyae Koçak, 1986, but can be more simply viewed as a superfluous replacement name.