Libythea labdaca

African snout butterfly
L. l. labdaca, Kakamega Forest, Kenya
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Libythea
Species:	L. labdaca
Binomial name
Libythea labdaca Westwood, 1851 [1]

Libythea labdaca, the African snout butterfly, is a member of the butterfly subfamily Libytheinae found in western and central Africa. ^[2]

It forms vast migratory swarms (over 1 billion butterflies were estimated in Ghana). The butterflies move south in the spring and north in the autumn.

The larvae feed on Celtis species (including C. kraussiana and C. sayauxii ).

• 
  Bobiri Forest, Ghana
• 
  Bobiri Forest, Ghana
• 
  puddling, Bobiri Forest, Ghana

Subspecies

• Libythea labdaca labdaca (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Bioko, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, western Kenya, western Tanzania)
• Libythea labdaca laiusTrimen, 1879 (Ethiopia, eastern Kenya, eastern and northern Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, eastern Zimbabwe, northern Botswana, South Africa, Eswatini)

References

1. Afrotropical Butterflies: Nymphalidae - Subfamily Libytheinae
2. Kawahara, A.Y. (2013). "Systematic revision and review of the extant and fossil snout butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Libytheinae)". Zootaxa. 3631 (1): 001–074. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3631.1.1. PMID   25325094.

Sources

• Kawahara, A. Y. 2006. Biology of the snout butterflies (Nymphalidae, Libytheinae), Part 1: Libythea Fabricius. Transactions of the Lepidopterological Society of Japan 57:13-33.
• Kawahara, A.Y., 2013: Systematic revision and review of the extant and fossil snout butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Libytheinae). Zootaxa3631 (1): 1-74. preview: .

External links

• Libytheana page at Tree of Life