Acraea oreas oreas Sharpe, 1891

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 : 2533

Acraea oreas oreas Sharpe, 1891

Larsen 1996: pl. 52, fig. 642i. d ’ Abrera 1997: 147 (2 figs). SI: Figure 19g – j.

Forewing length: male 23.5 – 31.0 mm [mean (n = 8) 27.21 mm, SD = 2.034]; female 25.0 – 33.0 mm [mean (n = 7) 29.07 mm, SD = 2.566].

Note: Ackery et al. (1995, p. 260) considered there to be two subspecies, the nominate race in the east, and A. oreas angolanus Lathy, 1906 , in the west. But Eltringham (1912) had already dismissed this supposed distinction, and this is followed by Pierre and Bernaud (2014). However, a new subspecies was more recently described from Nigeria and Cameroun, and thus the species is currently still regarded as bitypic ( Larsen 2005, p. 444, recognised all three). This species does not exhibit polymorphism, the sexes being very similar but not identical (class 1-6 according to system of Vane-Wright 1979), with only minor individual variation. In the female the pale central area of the hindwing upperside extends into the second cubital cell, which it does not in the male.