Charaxes zoolina

Club-tailed Emperor

♂ wet season form, and ♀ dry season form (as neanthes)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Charaxes
Species:	C. zoolina
Binomial name
*Charaxes zoolina* (Westwood, [1850])
Synonyms
Nymphalis zoolina Westwood, [1850] Nymphalis neanthes Hewitson, 1854 Charaxes neanthes obscuratus Suffert, 1904 Charaxes zoolina-neanthes f. homochroa Le Cerf, 1923 Charaxes neanthes f. pallidior Rousseau-Decelle, 1938 Charaxes betsimisaraka Lucas, 1872 Charaxes betanimena Lucas, 1872 Charaxes andriba Ward, 1873 Charaxes relatus Butler, 1880 Nymphalis freyi Brancsik, 1892 Charaxes zoolina-betsimisaraka f. firmus Le Cerf, 1923 Charaxes lambertoni Lathy, 1925 Charaxes zoolina f. franouxi Rousseau-Decelle, 1938 Charaxes ehmckei Homeyer & Dewitz, 1882 Charaxes zoolina f. phanera Jordan, 1908 Charaxes zoolina ehmckei lineata Bivar de Sousa, 1992 Charaxes zoolina mafugensis f. kivu Turlin, 1980 Charaxes zoolina mafugensis f. wincka Turlin, 1980

The Club-tailed Emperor or Club-tailed Charaxes (Charaxes zoolina) is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in southern Africa.^[1]

The wingspan is 40–45 mm in males and 50–58 mm in females. Flight period is from October to June.^[2]

Larvae feed on Entada - Entada spicata, Entada abyssinica, Entada natalensis, Acacia natalitia, Acacia schweinfurthi, Acacia brevispica, and Acacia kraussiana.^[1]^[2]

Female, under and upperside

Subspecies

Listed alphabetically.^[1]

C. z. betsimisaraka Lucas, 1872 (Madagascar)
C. z. ehmckei Dewitz, 1882 (Angola)
C. z. mafugensis Jackson, 1956 (south-western Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, north-western Tanzania)
C. z. zoolina (Westwood, [1850]) (southern Sudan, southern Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, northern Botswana, north-eastern Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland)

Taxonomy

Charaxes zoolina is a member of the species group Charaxes zoolina. The clade members are

Charaxes zoolina Nominate
Charaxes kahldeni

The group differs from all the others in Charaxes in the male having a tail on vein 2, but the female having two long tails on veins 2, 4. There are two different forms, one with black markings on a greenish white base colour (wet season form) and one with reddish-brown markings on red-yellow whitish colour (dry season form). These forms can be from eggs of the same female.

References

1 2 3 Charaxes, funet.fi
1 2 Woodhall, Steve. Field Guide to Butterflies of South Africa, Cape Town:Struik Publishers, 2005

Seitz, A. Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 32 b
Victor Gurney Logan Van Someren, 1974 Revisional notes on African Charaxes (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Part IX. Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History (Entomology) 29 (8):415-487.

External links

Images of C. zoolina zoolina Royal Museum for Central Africa (Albertine Rift Project)
Images of C. zoolina mafugensis (Albertine Rift Project)
Pteron Images
Images at Bold Charaxes zoolina
Bold images Charaxes zoolina zoolina
Bold images Charaxes zoolina betsimisaraka
Charaxes mafugensis images at BOLD
Charaxes ehmckei images at BOLD
Charaxes betsimisaraka images at BOLD

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