Colotis chrysonome (Klug, 1829)

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 : 1555-1556

Colotis chrysonome (Klug, 1829)

Larsen 1996: pl. 6, figs 48 i. d’ Abrera 1997: 72 (3 figs). SI: Figure 13e–h.

Forewing length: male 16–22 mm (mean (n = 5) 19.70 mm, SD = 1.700); female 16–22 mm (mean (n = 5) 19.68 mm, SD = 1.87003).

Records. Lower scrub country of Northern Highlands of Tanzania ( Kielland 1990, p.56), from 1000 to 1600 m, where it overlaps with the more southerly C. aurigineus ( Bernardi 1989: map 3). Included as a member of the lower slopes fauna of Kilimanjaro on the basis of the record by Butler (1888, p.92), and several specimens in BMNH collected at localities up to about 1500 m. Beyond Tanzania this taxon occurs in Mauritania, Senegal (north), Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria (extreme northeast, Maiduguri area), Niger, central and eastern Sahara, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Arabia (south), Uganda (north), Kenya (north, east and south), and also in Arabia (except east), Palestine, Israel and Jordan.

No subspecies are currently recognized. Talbot (1939, p.217) listed three races, to which Bernardi (1989) added at least C. c. helvolus Butler, 1888. This issue may need to be re-addressed. In this context it should be noted that Ackery et al. (1995, p.186) gave the type-locality for helvolus as “Kilim-njaro”, but this must be corrected to “Somali-land”, as is very clear from Butler’ s original text. Based on Talbot’ s account, if C. chrysonome were regarded as polytypic, then the Tanzania populations would be included within the nominate subspecies, as accepted by Kielland (1990).

A sexually dimorphic species, the female is very similar to the “ansorgei” form of C. aurigineus – but all chrysonome females have a less strongly marked hindwing underside. Given its predilection for dry conditions, unlike aurigineus , this species is unlikely to move into even the lowest forest zone of Kilimanjaro.