Acraea rabbaiae
Species of butterfly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Acraea rabbaiae, the clear wing acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, from Mozambique to Kenya and in Tanzania.
| Clear wing acraea | |
|---|---|
| |
| In Seitz's Fauna Africana XIII, Taf. 53 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Nymphalidae |
| Genus: | Acraea |
| Species: | A. rabbaiae |
| Binomial name | |
| Acraea rabbaiae | |
| Synonyms | |
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Description
A. rabbaiae Ward (53 a). Fore wing diaphanous with a black basal dot in 1 b and with discal dots in (1 a) 1 b to 6, 10 and 11, which beneath are united with one another and with a spot in the apex of the cell, forming a black transverse band; the veins at the distal margin black and in cellules 4 to 7 bordering large but indistinct light yellowish marginal spots. Hindwing very thinly scaled, whitish, with black, light yellow- spotted marginal band 2 to 3 mm. in breadth and entirely without other markings. Delagoa Bay to British East Africa and Rhodesia. - mombasae Smith only differs in having the hindwing and partially also the forewing scaled with very light brown-yellow instead of white and the discal dots of the forewing smaller and often indistinct. German East Africa. [3] The wingspan is 45–52 mm for males and 55–65 mm for females.
Subspecies
- Acraea rabbaiae rabbaiae (coast of Kenya, coast of Tanzania, northern Mozambique)
- Acraea rabbaiae perlucida Henning & Henning, 1996 (Malawi, southern Mozambique, eastern Zimbabwe, Eswatini, South Africa: Mpumalanga, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal)
Biology
Adults are on wing year-round, with peaks from September to June and from March to June.[4]
The larvae feed on Tryphostemma zanzibaricum and Schlechterina mitostemmatoides.
Taxonomy
It is a member of the Acraea satis species group - but see also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014 [5]
