''Pseudonympha southeyi'', or Southey's brown, is a

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

of the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species ha ...

. It is found in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

is 46–48 mm for males and 48–52 mm for females. Adults are on wing from September to December in most of the range but earlier in the south. There is one generation per year. The larvae probably feed on

Poaceae Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivate ...

grasses.

Subspecies

*''Pseudonympha southeyi southeyi'' (the Witteberge Mountains in the north-eastern Cape) *''Pseudonympha southeyi wykehami'' Dickson, 1967 (the Western Wagenbooms Bergen in the Western Cape) *''Pseudonympha southeyi kamiesbergensis'' Dickson, 1967 (the Kamiesberg Mountains in the Northern Cape)

References

Butterflies described in 1953 Pseudonympha Endemic butterflies of South Africa {{Satyrini-stub