Colotis ione (Godart, 1819)

Liseki, Steven D. & Vane-Wright, Richard I., 2014, Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Mount Kilimanjaro: family Pieridae, subfamily Pierinae, Journal of Natural History 48 (25 - 26), pp. 1543-1583 : 1558

Colotis ione (Godart, 1819)

Larsen 1996: pl. 6, fig. 56 i, pl. 7, fig. 56 ii. d’ Abrera 1997: 76, 77 (16 figs). SI: Figure 18a–j.

Forewing length: male 29.0–31.0 mm (mean (n = 5) 30.20 mm, SD = 0.495); female 28.0– 33.5 mm (mean (n = 7) 30.97 mm, SD = 1.357).

Records. This beautiful purple-tip is common from sea level to 1700 m, sometimes above 2000 m, occurring from the northern highlands to Lake Victoria, central, southern and eastern Tanzania ( Kielland 1990, p.58). Included as a member of the lower slopes fauna based on several specimens from West Kilimanjaro, New Moshi and Taveta in BMNH, with several more from Taveta in OUMNH. Rogers (1913, p.99) recorded this species from Taveta using the synonymous names Teracolus phlegyas (Butler) and T. bacchus Butler. Beyond Tanzania, this species occurs widely throughout most of Africa south of the Sahara ( Ackery et al. 1995).

A very variable butterfly, including numerous male and even more female forms (15 named female forms are keyed by Talbot 1939), well illustrated by d’ Abrera (1997). The females never have purple tips – if they have contrasting forewing tip coloration, it is always orange. Most of the female forms appear to involve an interaction between white versus yellow upperside ground colour, orange versus non-orange forewing tip coloration, and maculated versus non-maculated veins on the underside hindwing and forewing tip.