Amauris (Amaura) echeria meruensis Talbot, 1940

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 : 872

Amauris (Amaura) echeria meruensis Talbot, 1940

d ’ Abrera 1997: 191 (2 figs, of other subspecies). Kielland 1990: 272 (1 fig.). SI: Figure 5e – h.

Forewing length: male 38 – 44 mm [mean (n = 11) 41.55 mm, SD = 1.634]; female 45.0 mm (1 only).

Records

Highland forests and coffee plantations at 1400 – 2600 m, on Mts Kilimanjaro, Meru, Lolkisale, Kwaraha, Longido, the Oldeani-Ngorongoro highlands and Mbulu forests ( Kielland 1990, p. 74), Arusha and Moshi ( Carcasson 1963, p. 26). Talbot (1940, p. 330) listed numerous specimens collected on Kilimanjaro by Cooper, but all at or below 5000 ft (c. 1500 m), with one male from Moshi, and form ‘ luxurians ’ from Doringo Erok, northwest of the mountain, on the Kenya border. There are two males from the ‘ slopes ’, ex Rogers in OUMNH (who evidently considered it a common species up to about 1500 m – Rogers 1908, p. 493, 511). Given these data, and the fact that the species was not encountered by Liseki (2009), who worked in the protected forest from 2000 to 3000 m, we list this butterfly as part of the lower slopes fauna – but it must surely have the capacity to enter at least the lower levels of the protected forest. Amauris e. meruensis is endemic to Tanzania. Amauris echeria , which includes 18 recognized subspecies, ranges widely across forested biotopes in Africa, from Bioko to Ethiopia and south to South Africa ( Ackery et al. 1995, p. 274).