Iolaus diametra
Species of butterfly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iolaus diametra, the natal yellow-banded sapphire, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in Africa, roughly from South Africa to Ethiopia.
| Iolaus diametra | |
|---|---|
| |
| Seitz Fauna Africana Taf69 (line a) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Genus: | Iolaus |
| Species: | I. diametra |
| Binomial name | |
| Iolaus diametra | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
The wingspan is 26–28 mm for males and 27–29 mm for females. Adults are on wing from July to December with a peak in October in South Africa. There is one generation per year.[3]
The larvae of subspecies I. d. natalica feed on Actinanthella wylliei. Other recorded food plants are Oliverella hildebrandtii and Englerina woodfordioides.[4]
Subspecies
- I. d. diametra (northern Tanzania, eastern Kenya, southern Ethiopia)
- I. d. natalica Vári, 1976 (northern KwaZulu-Natal)
- I. d. littoralis (Congdon & Collins, 1998) (coast of Kenya, coast of Tanzania)
- I. d. zanzibarensis (Congdon & Collins, 1998) (Tanzania: Zanzibar)
