Charaxes tiridates

Charaxes tiridates
Charaxes tiridates, female, upperside
Charaxes tiridates, female, underside
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Charaxes
Species:	C. tiridates
Binomial name
Charaxes tiridates (Cramer, 1777)
Synonyms
Papilio tiridates Cramer, 1777 Papilio marica Fabricius, 1793 Charaxes tiridatinus Röber, 1936 Charaxes tiridates ab. tristis Schultze, 1914 Charaxes angusticaudatus Röber, 1936 Charaxes tiridates f. purpurina Rousseau-Decelle, 1938 Charaxes lucretius f. alberici Dufrane, 1945 Charaxes tiridates ab. conjuncta Storace, 1948 Charaxes tiridates ab. subcaerulea Storace, 1948 Charaxes hysginus Darge, 1978

Charaxes tiridates, the Common Blue Charaxes, is a butterfly in the Nymphalidae family. It is found in Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola and Zambia. The habitat consists of lowland evergreen forests and dense savanna.

The larvae feed on Phialodiscus unijugatus, Hugonia platysepala, Hugonia castaneifolia, Bombax reflexum, Chaetacme aristata, Celtis africana, Celtis durandi, Grewia tricocarpa, Grewia mollis, Afzelia africana, Flacourtia indica, Indigofera macrophylla, Osyris lanceolata, Blighia unijugata, Grewia forbesi, Bombax buonopozense, Albizia, Berlinia, Lonchocarpus, Hibiscus (including Hibiscus calyphyllus), Trema, Cassia, Dalbergia, Macrolobium, Millettia and Pterocarpus species.

savanna forest mosaic in Ghana

Original illustration in Pieter Cramer and Csapar Stoll's Uitlandsche Kapellen male

Feeding on fermented plantain in a fruit garden. Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Description

Male upperside forewings have a black ground colour glossed blue.There is a discal arc of 5 or so spots and a postdiscal sinous line of 8-10 spots. These spots are light blue and slightly metallic.The margin has pale amorphous lunules. The hindwing has two postdiscal rows of the light blue spots, the second close to the margin which has pale more lineate lunules.There are two short tails.

The female upperside has light brown basal areas, more extensive on the hind wing. There is a discal band of white marks just inside the much darker distal part of the forewing and two apical white spots.On the hindwing the dark area is narrow has 7 or so light blue and slightly metallic spots with some white scales.There are pale marginal lunules and one long and one short tail.

The underside wings are variously light brown with black pattern lines and in the female only a white discal band.

A full description is given by Rothschild, W. And Jordan, K., 1900 Novitates Zoologicae Volume 7:287-524. [1] page 354 for terms see Volume 5:545-601 [2]

Taxonomy

Charaxes tiridates group

the supposed clade members are

• Charaxes tiridates
• Charaxes numenes similar to next
• Charaxes bipunctatus similar to last
• Charaxes violetta
• Charaxes fuscus
• Charaxes mixtus
• Charaxes bubastis
• Charaxes albimaculatus
• Charaxes barnsi
• Charaxes bohemani
• Charaxes schoutedeni
• Charaxes monteiri
• Charaxes smaragdalis
• Charaxes xiphares
• Charaxes cithaeron
• Charaxes nandina
• Charaxes imperialis
• Charaxes ameliae
• Charaxes pythodoris
• ? Charaxes overlaeti

For a full list see Eric Vingerhoedt, 2013

Subspecies

• Charaxes tiridates tiridates (eastern Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, western Nigeria)
• Charaxes tiridates choveti Turlin, 1998 (Bioko)
• Charaxes tiridates marginatus Rothschild & Jordan, 1903 (western and south-western Ethiopia)
• Charaxes tiridates tiridatinus Röber, 1936 (Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, western and southern Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, western Kenya, north-western Tanzania, Angola, northern Zambia)

References

• Victor Gurney Logan Van Someren, 1972 Revisional notes on African Charaxes (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Part VIII. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) (Entomology)215-264.[3]
• Seitz, A. Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 31

External links

• Images of C. tiridates tiridates Royal Museum for Central Africa (Albertine Rift Project)
• Images of C. tiridates tiridatinus (Albertine Rift Project)
• Charaxes tiridates images at BOLD
• Charaxes tiridates tiridates images at BOLD
• Charaxes tiridates marginatus images at BOLD
• Charaxes tiridates tiridatinus images at BOLD