Acraea rabbaiae

Acraea rabbaiae, the clear wing acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini, from Mozambique to Kenya and in Tanzania.

Clear wing acraea
In Seitz's Fauna Africana XIII, Taf. 53
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Acraea
Species:	A. rabbaiae
Binomial name
Acraea rabbaiae Ward, 1873 [1][2]
Synonyms
Acraea (Acraea) rabbaiae Acraea mombasae Grose-Smith, 1889

Description

For a key to the terms used, see Glossary of entomology terms.

A. rabbaiae Ward (53 a). Fore wing diaphanous with a black basal dot in 1 b and with discal dots in (1 a) 1 b to 6, 10 and 11, which beneath are united with one another and with a spot in the apex of the cell, forming a black transverse band; the veins at the distal margin black and in cellules 4 to 7 bordering large but indistinct light yellowish marginal spots. Hindwing very thinly scaled, whitish, with black, light yellow- spotted marginal band 2 to 3 mm. in breadth and entirely without other markings. Delagoa Bay to British East Africa and Rhodesia. - mombasae Smith only differs in having the hindwing and partially also the forewing scaled with very light brown-yellow instead of white and the discal dots of the forewing smaller and often indistinct. German East Africa. ^[3] The wingspan is 45–52 mm for males and 55–65 mm for females.

Subspecies

• Acraea rabbaiae rabbaiae (coast of Kenya, coast of Tanzania, northern Mozambique)
• Acraea rabbaiae perlucida Henning & Henning, 1996 (Malawi, southern Mozambique, eastern Zimbabwe, Eswatini, South Africa: Mpumalanga, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal)

Biology

Adults are on wing year-round, with peaks from September to June and from March to June.^[4]

The larvae feed on Tryphostemma zanzibaricum and Schlechterina mitostemmatoides.

Taxonomy

It is a member of the Acraea satis species group - but see also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014 ^[5]