Belenois crawshayi

Jong, Rienk De, 2017, Fossil butterflies, calibration points and the molecular clock (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea), Zootaxa 4270 (1), pp. 1-63 : 25

crawshayi . Belenois crawshayi Butler, 1894

Pieridae : Pierinae .

Tanzania, opposite Zanzibar (African copal, see Zeuner, 1942); late Pleistocene or Holocene.

Depository: BMNH (one specimen, I.3004).

Published figures: Zeuner did not give an illustration of the (sub)fossil. Illustrations of the extant species can be found in many books on African butterflies.

Described by Butler (1894) as a recent species. A complete, well preserved male butterfly (only head missing) recorded by Zeuner (1942). It agrees entirely with the extant Belenois crawshayi ( Pieridae , Pierinae ) (distribution: Cameroon and Angola to East Africa) in size, venational pattern, coloration and shape of valva. It is not surprising to find that a recent species has been present in part of its distributional area for the last 10,000 or perhaps 100,000 years.