Acraea caecilia

Last updated

Pink acraea
Acraea caecilia autour du Parc National de la Pendjari.jpg
Mating in Pendjari NP, the male above
AcraeaSpecies2.jpg
A. c. pudora and related species
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Acraea
Species:
A. caecilia
Binomial name
Acraea caecilia
(Fabricius, 1781) [1] [2]
Synonyms
  • Papilio caeciliaFabricius, 1781
  • Acraea (Acraea) caecilia
  • Papilio hypatiaDrury, 1782
  • Papilio artemesaStoll, 1790
  • Telchinia bendisHübner, 1819
  • Acraea caecilia f. variaLe Doux, 1923
  • Acraea caecilia f. pudoraAurivillius, 1910
  • Acraea caecilia ab. umbrinaAurivillius, 1910
  • Acraea caecilia ab. nudaWichgraf, 1914

Acraea caecilia, the pink acraea, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is found in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. [3]

Contents

Description

A. caecilia F. is similar to the preceding species, [ Acraea natalica but on an average smaller (expanse 56 to 70 mm.) and differs in having the discal dots in cellules 4 to 6 of the forewing smaller, rounder and further removed from the apex of the cell; the forewing has 2 to 4 submarginal dots (in lb to 4). Ground-colour above light reddish yellow to salmon-colour; base of both wings and apex of the fore wing black for the same extent as in natalica; hindwing above always with sharply defined black marginal band about 2 mm. in breadth, not or indistinctly spotted; under surface as in natalica, but the red spots on the hindwing indistinct. Senegal to Nigeria; Nubia; Uganda; Abyssinia; Somaliland; British and German East Africa.- female ab. artemisa Stoll has the ground-colour above white, with the black markings much widened. West Africa ? - female ab. hypatia Drury only differs in the darker, redder ground-colour of the upper surface. Sierra Leone. - pudora Auriv. (55 g) is an eastern race, in which the black colour at the apex of the forewing is only very narrow and does not- cover the base of cellules 7 and 8. German and British East Africa. - ab. umbrina Auriv. only differs from pudora in the forewing above having between veins 2 and 5 or 6 a grey, semitransparent submarginal nebulous band. [4]

Subspecies

Biology

The habitat consists of savanna and dry thornbush.

The larvae feed on Wormskioldia (including W. pilosa ) and Adenia species (including A. cissampeloides ).

Taxonomy

It is a member of the Acraea caecilia species group. See also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014. [5]

References

  1. ↑ Fabricius, J.C. 1781 Species Insectorum Exhibentes Eorum Differentia Specifica, Synonyma Auctorum, Loca Natalia, Metamorphosin Adiectis, Observationibus, Descriptionibus 1-494
  2. ↑ "Acraea Fabricius, 1807" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  3. ↑ "Afrotropical Butterflies: Nymphalidae - Tribe Acraeini". Archived from the original on 2012-08-10. Retrieved 2012-06-01.
  4. ↑ Aurivillius, [P.O.]C. 1908-1924. In: Seitz, A. Die Grosschmetterlinge der Erde Band 13: Abt. 2, Die exotischen Grosschmetterlinge, Die afrikanischen Tagfalter, 1925, 613 Seiten, 80 Tafeln (The Macrolepidoptera of the World 13).Alfred Kernen Verlag, Stuttgart.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  5. ↑ Pierre & Bernau, 2014 Classification et Liste Synonymique des Taxons du Genre Acraea pdf Archived 2014-11-12 at the Wayback Machine


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.