Neocoenyra parallelopupillata (Karsch, 1897)

Liseki, Steven D. & Vane-Wright, Richard I., 2015, Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Mount Kilimanjaro: Nymphalidae subfamilies Libytheinae, Danainae, Satyrinae and Charaxinae, Journal of Natural History 50, pp. 865-904 : 878

[ Neocoenyra parallelopupillata (Karsch, 1897) ]

Kielland, 1990: 276 (1 fig.); d ’ Abrera 1997: 245 (3 figs). SI: Figure 11a – d.

Forewing length: both sexes, c. 18 – 22 mm.

Records

This butterfly is generally considered endemic to the Usambara Mountains (e.g. Kielland 1990, p. 90; Congdon and Bampton 2001), where it was encountered at Magamba during March and May by Liseki (2009, p. 99), who indicated that ‘ This species is numerous during its season, [flying] low in dark places near ground level ’. Amongst the material deposited by SDL at the BMNH, there is a single male with a printed label ‘ Kilimanjaro, 2000 m, 26.v.2001 ’.

Although we now realize that, without doubt, this is a subsequent labelling error (confirmed by examination of the original collecting envelope, still attached, with the data ‘ Magamba, 26.v.2001, 2000 m, 12.40 hrs ’), it led us to consider the possibility that N. parallelopupillata might also occur on Kilimanjaro. This species has been reported in the past from Malawi and Kenya ( Gifford 1965, p. 91; the record for ‘ Kenya ’ being credited to Elliot Pinhey). Although these records have generally been discounted (e.g. Carcasson 1981, p. 182; Ackery et al. 1995, p. 316), it is not inconceivable N. parallelopupillata has a wider range than previously thought. The BMNH has a male of what appears to be this very dark species from ‘ Itumba District ’, collected by G. Wood in July 1904. This could be the Itumba located in the Mbeya District of southwest Tanzania, adjacent to the border with Malawi. The Malawi record noted by Gifford was based on material supposedly collected in April at Nyamkhowa Hill, near Livingstonia, by R.C. Wood (hopefully still preserved in what is now the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo). The late David Gifford ’ s own collection is in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh but, according to Keith Bland (pers. comm. May 2015), it does not contain any material of N. parallelopupillata . However, the NMS apparently does have what appears to be a single example of this species from Kenya, labelled ‘ Athi Plains, 31. xii.1952, C. de Worms ’. The Athi Plains lie south of Nairobi, about 200 km northwest of Kilimanjaro. Further investigation into this species seems desirable.