Charaxes (Eriboea) ethalion littoralis van Someren, 1967

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 : 883

Charaxes (Eriboea) ethalion littoralis van Someren, 1967

Henning 1989: 305,306 (6 figs). Kielland 1990: 284 (3 figs). SI: Figure 17a – h.

Forewing length: male 29 – 36 mm [mean (n = 20) 32.49 mm, SD = 1.320]; female 34 – 42 mm [mean (n = 13) 37.51 mm, SD = 1.985]. van Someren (1967, p. 294) gave male forewing length as 33 – 34 mm.

Note: the females are very different to the black males, and are also polymorphic – three named female forms are recognized in this subspecies: ‘ ethalion ’, ‘ rosae ’ and ‘ swynnertoni ’ ( Henning 1989, p. 305 – 306). However, with individual variation in pattern and size, to some extent these intergrade.

Records

Eastern Tanzania, inland to Mikumi, Kilimanjaro and the Rubeho, Nguru and Nguu mountains, flying from sea level to 2000 m ( Kielland 1990, p. 101). Henning (1989, p. 306) notes Dar-es-Salaam, Morogoro, Arusha and Taveta, this last apparently reflecting van Someren (1967, p. 295). Rogers (in Butler 1901, p. 24) noted this species (as Charaxes rosae Butler ) as fairly common at Taveta – from where OUMNH has eight males collected by Rogers at c. 2500 ft, April and May 1905, one female (f. ‘ ethalion ’) May 1905, ex Wiggins, together with one male from New Moshi 6 May 1916, collected by Lamborn. The BMNH has males from New Moshi, March 1916 (F.C. Selous), Moshi July 1920 (W.N. van Someren) and ‘ 6 miles NW of Moshi ’ May 1916 (Buchanan). Not encountered by Liseki (2009), C. e. littoralis is included here as a member of the lower slopes fauna. Beyond Tanzania this race occurs in the coastal belt of Kenya. Collectively, the nine subspecies of C. ethalion (Boisduval, 1847) range from Kenya south to South Africa, and west as far as southern DRC and Zambia ( Ackery et al. 1995, p. 441).