Charaxes (Charaxes) xiphares kilimensis van Someren, 1969

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 : 894

Charaxes (Charaxes) xiphares kilimensis van Someren, 1969

van Someren 1969: pl. 28, figs 244 – 245, 247 – 248; 1972: pl. 12, figs 96,97. SI: Figure 27e – h (C. x. kilimensis female, and C. x. maudei male). Size: male 49 mm; female 55 mm ( van Someren 1969, p. 83). Forewing length (based on C. x. maudei Joicey and Talbot, 1918 ): male 45 – 50 mm [mean (n = 8) 47.55 mm, SD = 1.366]; female 48.5 – 56.5 mm [mean (n = 4) 52.98 mm, SD = 2.986].

Note: See Appendix 7 regarding the date of publication of this taxon. Henning (1989, p. 173) states that it has an intermediate phenotype between C. k. brevicaudatus Schultz, 1914, with short hindwing tails, and Charaxes maudei , with very long tails.

Records

The type locality is ‘ Lower slopes of West Kilimanjaro at Maua Estate ’ ( van Someren 1969, p. 84). Apparently confined to montane forest on the west side of the mountain. Very few specimens are known of this rare endemic ( Kielland 1990, p. 112); it was not encountered by Liseki (2009), and we know of no specimens other than the original type material (only the female of which was deposited in BMNH – see Appendix 7). In addition to kilimensis, Kielland (1990) records six other subspecies of C. xiphares (Stoll, 1781) from Tanzania. In total, Ackery et al. (1995, p. 461,462) list 22 subspecies of this east African highland forest butterfly (to which at least two more must now be added), distributed from Kenya and Uganda south to South Africa,