''Acraea chilo'' 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

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Kenya Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

and

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

Description

''A. chilo'' Godm. (55 a; and 54 c, as ''barberi''). The basal dot in 1 c and the discal dots in 2 to 4 of the forewing all four stand in a line running almost parallel with the costal margin. In this ''chilo'' and the following species

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differ from all the rest of the subgroup. Such an arrangement of these dots is also very rare among the other African Acraeids, only occurring in ''niobe, hypoleuca, anacreon, mirifica'' and approximately also in ''wigginsi'' and ''neobule''. male: forewing above light yellowish red, somewhat rose-coloured, at the base not or little darkened; forewing with the marginal band spotted with orange-yellow, 3 to 6 mm. broad, of uniform breadth or widened at the apex, a basal dot in 1 b, 2 in the cell, a median spot and large discal dots in 1 b to 6, of which the dot in lb is placed much nearer to the distal margin than the one in 2; hindwing above with indistinctly spotted marginal band 3 mm. in breadth and distinct discal dots, the one in 4 placed nearer to the distal margin than the rest and the one in 2 near the base of the cellule. Forewing beneath almost as above, but with whitish subapical band between discal dots 4 to 6 and the marginal band; hindwing beneath whitish yellow with some red spots in 1 a to 1 c and at the base of the costal margin and with large whitish marginal spots. In the female the forewing is hyaline with smaller black dots and larger orange-yellow marginal spots; hindwing as in the male, but more thinly scaled and lighter-coloured and also above with large, often black-dotted, yellow spots in the marginal band. Kilimandjaro; British East Africa; Somaliland and Abyssinia. -ab. ''crystallina'' Smith (54 a) is an extreme form of the female in which both wings are hyaline, only at the base slightly yellowish, and the fore wing lacks all the black dots and also the marginal band. On account of the lack of markings this clue to the identification of this form with ''chilo'' fails, and the proof must depend on a comparison of several intermediate forms. Eltringham regards ''crystallina'' as the typical female of ''chilo'', but as Godman described and figured, at the same time as the male another female much more nearly agreeing with it, this latter form must be regarded as typical. Kilimandjaro and British East Africa.

Subspecies

*''Acraea chilo chilo'' — Sudan, southern Ethiopia, eastern and central Kenya, north-eastern Tanzania, Somalia *''Acraea chilo yemensis'' Le Doux, 1931 — south-western Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Taxonomy

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

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 ...

- but 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
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Images representing ''Acraea chilo''
at Bold Butterflies described in 1880 chilo Butterflies of Africa Taxa named by Frederick DuCane Godman Butterflies of Asia {{Heliconiinae-stub