Cyrestis camillus

Cyrestis camillus, the African map butterfly, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in Africa, from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia and Tanzania and from Kenya to Natal.

African map butterfly
C. c. camillus in the Kakamega Forest, Kenya
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Cyrestis
Species:	C. camillus
Binomial name
Cyrestis camillus (Fabricius, 1781)
Synonyms
Papilio camillus Fabricius, 1781 Cyrestis (Azania) camillus Papilio pantheus Drury, 1782 Cyrestis camillus f. donckieri Le Cerf, 1927 Cyrestis sublineata Lathy, 1901

Description

The wingspan is 42–55 mm.The transverse bands, especially the second, third and sixth, are broad, edged with blackish and filled in with bronzy brown; the anal lobe and anal angle of the hindwing beneath continuously filled in with black. —- ab. nigrescens Martin only differs in having the bands filled in with smoke-black and the yellow colour at the anal angle of the hindwing replaced by blue-grey. Central Africa.^[1]

Biology

The larvae feed on Morus, Ficus and Zizyphus species.

Subspecies

• Cyrestis camillus camillus (Sierra Leone to Cameroon, Zaire, Angola, western Kenya, Ethiopia)
• Cyrestis camillus elegans Boisduval, 1833 (Madagascar)
• Cyrestis camillus sublineata Lathy, 1901 (Zimbabwe, Mozambique to Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, eastern Kenya, South Africa)