Andronymus caesar

Andronymus caesar
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Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Clade:	Pancrustacea
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Hesperiidae
Genus:	Andronymus
Species:	A. caesar
Binomial name
Andronymus caesar (Fabricius, 1793) [1]
Synonyms
Hesperia caesarFabricius, 1793 Pamphila philanderHopffer, 1855 Andronymus hero philander Apaustus leanderPlötz, 1879 Andronymus antoniusLindsey and Miller, 1965

Andronymus caesar, the white dart or common dart, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in tropical Africa. The habitat consists of forests, moist savannah and riverine bush, from sea level to altitudes of 1,500 metres.

The wingspan is 38–44 mm. Adults are on wing year-round, but mainly from November to April in South Africa. ^[2]

The larvae feed on Macrolobium , Blighia (including Blighia unijugata ), Deinbollia and Phialodiscus species.

Subspecies

• Andronymus caesar caesar (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo: except east and south)
• Andronymus caesar philander(Hopffer, 1855) (Democratic Republic of the Congo: east and south to Shaba, southern Sudan, Uganda, eastern Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa: Limpopo Province to Pafuri, Mpumalanga and the Blyde River Canyon)

Torben Larsen developed a species numbering system for his 2005 publication Butterflies of West Africa. The nominate subspecies is #1367. ^[3] The 'Larsen' number is used with permission in A Sharp Eye on Butterflies of Ghana, which notes that this species and A. hero cannot be identified from picture of underside alone ^[4]

References

1. Andronymus at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
2. Woodhall, Steve (2005). Field Guide to Butterflies of South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik. ISBN   978-1-86872-724-7.
3. Larsen, Torben B. (2005). Butterflies of West Africa. Stenstrup, Denmark: Apollo Books. ISBN   978-87-88757-43-9.
4. Sharp, Charles J.; Sáfián, Sz. (2026). A Sharp Eye on Butterflies of Ghana. Oxford: Sharp Eye Publications and Hungarian Natural Heritage Trust. p. 179. ISBN   978-615-02-5911-6.