Sapho pulchella

Kirby, W. F., 1889, Descriptions of new Genera and Species of Odonata in the Collection of the British Museum, chiefly from Africa., Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1889, pp. 297-303 : 300

Sapho pulchella .

Exp. al. 64-70 millim.

Male. Bronzy black above, head spotted with tawny, the ocelli being placed in the middle of four tawny spots; thorax with the lateral lobes almost entirely sui rounded with tawny, the pleura striped with the same colour, and the under surface somewhat pruinose; legs black, femora testaceous, marked with a black line. Abdomen with a tawny spot on the sides, at the base of the first five segments, and a tawny lateral stripe on the sides of the first segment, continued more narrowly on the second and third, where it is coppery. Wings bright orange-tawny or coppery, iridescent, paler at the base; stigma brown, enclosed by black lines, about four times as long as broad, the lower side projecting basally in a point; neuration very close; antenodal nervures upwards of 40, and postnodal nervures numbering 50 or 60.

Female. Body similarly coloured, but wings brownish hyaline, with a fiery copper iridescence in certain lights, and a narrow milkwhite band on both wings, not quite extending to the costa or inner margin, and curved on the hind wings, placed considerably beyond the nodus. On the abdomen, the tawny spots at the base of the segments and the tawny lateral line are continued on all the five segments which remain.

Hab. Cameroons.

Size and shape of S. longistigma, Selys, a specimen of which was received in the same collection, but with the abdomen rather shorter and stouter.