Charaxes numenes


Charaxes numenes, the lesser blue charaxes, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is found in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Description

Ch. numenes Hew.. Tails of the hindwing short. Hindwing beneath somewhat beyond the middle with a continuous, fine, gently curved, black transverse line, distally bordered with white, almost exactly as in violetta. In this these two species differ from all the rest of the tiridates group. Male, wings above bluish black, at the base black-brown; forewing in the middle with four small blue spots in the basal part of cellules 2-5 and usually also behind the middle with a transverse row of blue dots; marginal spots distinct, ochre-yellow. Hindwing beyond the middle with a row of blue dots, incurved in cellule 6; small whitish submarginal spots and fine whitish marginal streaks. The female agrees almost entirely with that of tiridates Sierra Leone to Angola and Uganda. - neumanni Rothsch. has larger yellow marginal spots on both wings and somewhat
longer tail-appendages on the hindwing; Abyssinia.

Biology

The habitat consists of evergreen lowland forests.
The larvae feed on Hugonia platysepela, Grewia mollis, Grewia forbesi, Grewia trichocarpa, Deinbollia fulvotomentella, Erythrina abyssinica, Erythrina excelsa, Allophylus, Blighia unijugata and Phialodiscus unijugatus.

Subspecies

  • Charaxes numenes numenes
  • Charaxes numenes aequatorialis van Someren, 1972
  • Charaxes numenes malabo Turlin, 1998
  • Charaxes numenes neumanni Rothschild, 1902

Taxonomy

Charaxes tiridates group.
The supposed clade members are:
For a full list see Eric Vingerhoedt, 2013.