Acraea esebria Hewitson, 1861

Liseki, Steven D. & Vane-Wright, Richard I., 2018, Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Mount Kilimanjaro: Nymphalidae subfamily Helconiinae, Journal of Natural History 52 (39 - 40), pp. 2511-2552 : 2536

Acraea esebria Hewitson, 1861

Larsen 1996: pl. 53, fig. 656i,ii (as E. esebria esebria ). d ’ Abrera 1997: 163 (6 figs; as E. esebria esebria ). Bernaud and Murphy 2014: 115 (8 figs, Malawi). SI: Figure 24a – j.

Forewing length: male 26.0 – 32.5 mm [mean (n = 20) 29.90 mm, SD = 1.543]; female 28.5 – 37.5 mm [mean (n = 7) 32.67 mm, SD = 2.462].

Note: Both sexes are polymorphic, with at least four forms occurring in north-east Tanzania. Females are on average larger than males, but the sexes are difficult to separate on the basis of wing coloration and abdominal pattern only. For southern Africa Van Son (1963) recognised six named forms in each of the sexes. The forewing upperside preapical band varies from white to yellow, sometimes tinged with red or orange posteriorly; the hindwing upperside discal area and forewing post-discal area can be white, yellow, orange or red, sometimes infuscated.