''Acraea atergatis'' 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 ...

in 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

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

(Haut-Lomani, Cataractes, Kinshasa),

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

, north-western

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

, northern

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

and

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Description

''A. atergatis'' Westw. (55 f) has two rather different seasonal forms. In both forms the wings above are bright uniform orange-yellow to the base, beneath in the dry-season form lighter and in the rainy-season form somewhat darker and more reddish than above; the black dots are arranged as in oncaea, but in the rainy-season form very large and thick; the forewing above is only narrowly black at the costal and distal margins, but without apical spot, and has strong black streaks in 3 to 6; the hindwing is a little blackened at the base of cellule 1 c and the cell; the seasonal forms differ particularly in the development of the marginal band of the hindwing; in the rainy-season form the black marginal band is on both surfaces about 1 mm. in breadth, above unspotted, beneath with narrow streak-like white marginal spots; in the dry-season form the marginal band is entirely absent or is only weakly indicated beneath, hence the marginal streaks of the under surface shade into the ground-colour without any dividing-line; the under surface of the hindwing has more or less distinct red spots. Angola; southern Congo region and Rhodesia.

Biology

The habitat consists of open areas in deciduous woodland. Adults are on wing year round. There are distinct seasonal forms.

Taxonomy

It is a member of the '' Acraea caecilia''

species group In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

. See also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014.Pierre & Bernau, 2014 Classification et Liste Synonymique des Taxons du Genre ''Acraea'
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References

External links

''Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde'' 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 55
''f'' Butterflies described in 1881 atergatis Butterflies of Africa Taxa named by John O. Westwood {{Heliconiinae-stub