''Tuxentius calice'', the white pie, is a

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

of 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 butterfl ...

. It is found in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

southwards of the equator. 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 of ...

is 21–24 mm for males and 21–25 mm for females. Adults are on wing year-round, but are most common from October to March. The larvae feed on '' Ziziphus mucronata'' and probably other ''

Ziziphus ''Ziziphus'' is a genus of about 40 species of spiny shrubs and small trees in the buckthorn family, Rhamnaceae, distributed in the warm-temperate, subtropical and tropical regions of the world. The leaves are alternate, entire, with three promi ...

'' species.

Subspecies

*''Tuxentius calice calice'' — South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, southern Zaire (Shaba), Angola, Malawi, southern Tanzania *''Tuxentius calice gregorii'' (Butler, 1894) — northern Tanzania, central Kenya

References

Butterflies described in 1855 Polyommatini {{Polyommatini-stub