''Chrysoritis oreas'', the Drakensberg copper or Drakensberg daisy copper, is a species of

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

in the family

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, where it is found in montane grassland in the eastern

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is loca ...

Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Afrikaans: Drakensberge, Zulu: uKhahlambha, Sotho: Maluti) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within t ...

foothills. The

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

is 21–23 mm for males and 22–24 mm for females. Adults are on wing from late September to mid-November. There is one generation per year. The larvae feed on '' Thesium'' species. They are attended to by ''

Myrmicaria ''Myrmicaria'' is an ant genus within the subfamily Myrmicinae. Description ''Myrmicaria'' can be discerned from related ant genera by a postpetiole with a complete tergosternal fusion, a postpetiole-gaster articulation shifted ventrally on th ...

nigra Nigra may refer to: Geography * Castelnuovo Nigra, a comune (municipality) in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont * Porta Nigra, a large Roman city gate in Trier, Germany * Rupes Nigra, a phantom island, was believed to be a 33 ...

'' ants.

References

Chrysoritis Butterflies described in 1891 Endemic butterflies of South Africa Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Aphnaeini-stub