Subfamily Heliconiinae.: A largely pantropical group, with one of the five tribes found in the Holarctic Region.
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Tribe Acraeini: There are two Afrotropical genera contained within this tribe; Telchinia and Acraea, both represented at Semuliki. There are 138 described Afrotropical species within this tribe with 104 species recorded in Uganda. At Semuliki a total of 45 species from both genera have been recorded: 25 from the genus Telchinia and 20 species of Acraea, contributing to a third of the Ugandan species total.
Genus Cymothoe: There are 15 species of the Afrotropical genus Cymothoe so far recorded at Semuliki from a.continent total of 78 (Williams, 2018) and a Ugandan total of 17 (Williams, 2015) or 90% of Uganda's total. The two Ugandan species not being recorded at Semuliki being C. distincta and C. indamora, but with both these species being recorded either in the Ituri Forest or Semliki Valley (Ducarme, 2018) it is a distinct possibility that they will also be found in Semuliki. Only three species are frequently sampled in traps and these are C. sangaris, C. cyclades and C. confusa. This genus has been categorised into clades nd the most commonly trapped species C. confusa had a distinctly clumped distribution within Semuliki. Species from this genus were observed more in the forest midstorey as compared to the preference of the forest floor for the genera Bebearia, Euphaedra and Euriphene.
Genus Cymothoe: There are 15 species of the Afrotropical genus Cymothoe so far recorded at Semuliki from a.continent total of 78 (Williams, 2018) and a Ugandan total of 17 (Williams, 2015) or 90% of Uganda's total. The two Ugandan species not being recorded at Semuliki being C. distincta and C. indamora, but with both these species being recorded either in the Ituri Forest or Semliki Valley (Ducarme, 2018) it is a distinct possibility that they will also be found in Semuliki. Only three species are frequently sampled in traps and these are C. sangaris, C. cyclades and C. confusa. This genus has been categorised into clades nd the most commonly trapped species C. confusa had a distinctly clumped distribution within Semuliki. Species from this genus were observed more in the forest midstorey as compared to the preference of the forest floor for the genera Bebearia, Euphaedra and Euriphene.
BUTTERFLY
Research, Conservation and Education
Semuliki National Park, Uganda
Genus Euphaedra
There are 27 species of the genus Euphaedra so far recorded at Semuliki. These contribute to nearly 80% of Uganda's Euphaedra species total (Davenport, 2001), with only seven species not being recorded at Semuliki. Only three species are regularly trapped (medon, harpalyce and caerulescens) but never in the abundance as found with Bebearia laetitioides or Bebearia brunhilda.
This genus has been classified into taxonomic subgenus species groups (Hecq, 1997) and species on this page will be grouped accordingly. Species from genus Euphaedra are again highly sensitive to forests with excellent canopy cover, consistently humid forest floor conditions and undegraded. There are three corrections from Forbes (2018), two changes to subspecies determination and a species that was misrecorded. The subspecies E. edwardsii langoueensis should read E. edwardsii edwardsii and E. medon inaequabilis should read E. medon fraudata. E. sardetta was wrongly recorded at Semuliki and has been removed from the newly updated total number of species recorded.
Subgenus Medoniana. There is only one species within this subgenus recorded at Semuliki, Euphaedra medon. This is the most common Euphaedra species at Semuliki and includes males with two colour forms; a forewing upperside sub-apical white or yellow band. A number of subspecies are described with Euphaedra medon fraudata found at Semuliki.
Euphaedra medon fraudata (Thurau, 1904)
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Euphaedra medon (males, upper and underside, showing sub-apical band widths and colour variation)
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Euphaedra medon (male, underside)
Euphaedra medon (males, upperside variation)
Euphaedra medon (males, upperside variation)
Euphaedra medon (female, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra medon (female, upper and underside, apex colour and subapical band variation)
Subgenus Gausapia
This subgenus has two described groups (gausape and zaddachi), with two species from the zaddachi group being recorded from Semuliki.
Zaddachi species group. The two species recorded from Semuliki in this group, Euphaedra christyi (endemic to Uganda) and E. zaddachi were rarely observed or sampled at Semuliki. Euphaedra zaddachi was never trapped but observed.
Euphaedra christyi (Sharpe, 1904)
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Euphaedra christyi (female, upper and underside - sexes similar)
Euphaedra zaddachi zaddachi (Dewitz, 1879)
Euphaedra zaddachi (waiting on field images)
Subgenus Euphaedrana
A subgenus made up of five groups (themis, ceres, preussi, eleus and harpalyce), species recorded from Semuliki are represented within each group.
Harpalyce species group. There is only one species within this species group currently recorded at Semuliki: Euphaedra harpalyce. A relatively common species, but never sampled in abundance. The second most sampled Euphaedra species after E. medon. There is no post-discal white band on the underside of E. harpalyce males and females, which easily differentiates this species from the female of E. medon. There are a number of described subspecies, Euphaedra harpalyce spatiosa is recorded from Semuliki.
Euphaedra harpalyce spatiosa (Mabille, 1876)
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Euphaedra harpalyce (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra harpalyce (female, upper and underside)
Preussi species group. There are four species within this group currently recorded at Semuliki: Euphaedra preussi, E. albofasciata, E.vicina and E. procera or subprocera. The E. procera/subprocera specimen sampled at Semuliki has both procera and subprocera traits as described by Hecq (1997). Hecq (1997) also describes both 'species' as very difficult to differentiate and this was also verified by Gilles Faravel in discussions with respect to the descriptions of these two 'species'. In all probability both should be considered as one species, but until a revision of the genus is undertaken they will be labelled here as procera.
Euphaedra preussi preussi (Staudinger, 1891)
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Euphaedra preussi (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra preussi (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra preussi (female, underside)
Euphaedra procera (Hecq, 1984)
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Euphaedra procera (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra procera (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra procera (female, underside)
Euphaedra procera (female, upper and underside)
Images by Sven Bontenbal (Semuliki National Park Collection - www.observation.org)
Euphaedra albofasciata (Rebel, 1914)
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Euphaedra albofasciata (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra albofasciata (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra albofasciata (female, underside)
Euphaedra viscina viscina (Hecq, 1984)
Euphaedra vicina (female, uppersides)
Euphaedra vicina (female, underside)
Images by Sven Bontenbal (Semuliki National Park Collection - www.observation.org)
Euphaedra vicina (female, underside)
Themis species group. There are two species within this group currently recorded at Semuliki: Euphaedra eberti and E. ueleana. As with the majority of Euphaedra species, E. eberti is uncommon. The image below of E. eberti shows morphological variation, with some populations having an upperside red basal patch (not found at Semuliki), (Zúbrik et al., 2019). E. ueleana was only ever trapped once.
Euphaedra eberti hamus (Berger, 1940)
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Euphaedra eberti (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra eberti (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra eberti (female, underside)
Euphaedra ueleana (Hecq, 1982)
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Euphaedra ueleana (male, upper and underside)
Ceres species group. There are three species within this group currently recorded at Semuliki: Euphaedra sarita, E. viridicaerulea and E. intermedia. As with the majority of Euphaedra species, all are uncommon with E. intermedia a new record.
Euphaedra sarita sarita (Sharpe, 1891)
Euphaedra sarita (female, upper and underside)
Euphaedra viridicaerulea inanoides (Holland, 1920)
Euphaedra viridicaerulea (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra viridicaerulea (female, upperside)
Euphaedra viridicaerulea (female, underside)
Euphaedra intermedia (Rebel, 1914)
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Euphaedra intermedia (males variation, upper and undersides)
Euphaedra intermedia (male, underside)
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Euphaedra intermedia (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra intermedia (female, underside)
Eleus species group. There are eight species within this group currently recorded at Semuliki: Euphaedra alacris, E. edwardsii, E. eleus, E. hybrida, E. rattrayi, E. simplex, E. alternata and E. ruspina. Again all these species are relatively uncommon and this is one of the more difficult Euphaedra groups to identify due to variation within species.
Euphaedra alacris (Hecq, 78)
Euphaedra alacris (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra alacris (female, upper and underside)
Euphaedra edwardsii edwardsii (van der Hoeven, 1845)
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Euphaedra edwardsii (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra edwardsii (female, upper and underside)
Euphaedra eleus eleus (Drury, 1782)
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Euphaedra eleus (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra eleus (female, upperside)
Euphaedra eleus (female, underside)
Euphaedra hybrida (Aurivillius, 1898)
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Euphaedra hybrida (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra hybrida (female, upperside)
Euphaedra hybrida (female, upperside)
Euphaedra simplex (Hecq, 1972)
Euphaedra simplex (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra simplex (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra simplex (female, underside)
Euphaedra rattrayi rattrayi (Sharpe, 1904)
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Euphaedra rattrayi (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra rattrayi (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra rattrayi (female, underside)
Euphaedra alternus (van Someren, 1935)
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Euphaedra alternus (female, upper and underside)
Euphaedra ruspina (Hewitson, 1865)
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Euphaedra ruspina (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra ruspina (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra ruspina (female, underside)
Subgenus Radia. There are only two species identified within this subgenus and one, E. imitans is recorded at Semuliki. A very rare and seldomly trapped species.
Euphaedra imitans (Holland, 1893)
Euphaedra imitans (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra imitans (female, upperside)
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Euphaedra imitans (female, underside)
Subgenus Xpetana
This subgenus comprises four groups of which two, mirabilis and sinuosa have species recorded at Semuliki.
Mirabilis species group. There are three species recorded at Semuliki from the mirabilis group; Euphaedra. ansorgei, E. caerulescens and E. mirabilis. E. caerulescens is one of the more common Euphaedra species sampled at Semuliki with the other two species in this group being uncommon.
Euphaedra ansorgei (Rothschild, 1918)
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Euphaedra ansorgei (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra caerulescens caerulescens (Grose-Smith, 1890)
Euphaedra caerulescens (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra caerulescens (female, upperside)
Euphaedra caerulescens (female, underside)
Euphaedra mirabilis nubila (Hecq, 1986)
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Euphaedra mirabilis (female, upper and underside)
Sinuosa species group. There are two species within this group currently recorded at Semuliki: E. diffusa and E. sinuosa. Both species again were not sampled frequently and are uncommon.
Euphaedra diffusa diffusa (Gaede, 1916)
Euphaedra diffusa (male, upper and underside)
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Euphaedra diffusa (female, upperside)
Euphaedra diffusa (female, underside)
Euphaedra sinuosa sinuosa (Hecq, 1974)
Euphaedra sinuosa (male, upper and underside)
Euphaedra sinuosa (female, upperside)
Euphaedra sinuosa (female, underside)
Genus references and bibliography
Thanks very much to Gilles Faravel (author of Euphaedra part 48, see below) for updated advice on Semuliki species identification confirmation, latest taxonomy and systematics. Special thanks are also due to Milan Zúbrik for taking a fresh look at image identifications with some advice on species identification changes which have been much appreciated.
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​African Butterflies website - www.africanbutterflies.co.uk is a resource of Euphaedra images excellently curated by Mike Cleaver.
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Ducarme, R., (2018). The butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Metamorphosis 29, 22-36.
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Ducarme, R., (2024). The butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Updated.
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Faravel, G., (2020). Euphaedra, Nymphalidae XXVIII (part 48). Butterflies of the World. Bauer, E. & Frankenbach, T. eds. Goecke and Evers, Keltern, Germany.
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Hecq, J., (1997). Euphaedra. Lambillionea, Union des Entomologistes Belges, Tervuren, Belgium.​
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Hecq, J., (1999). Euphaedra, Nymphalidae III (part 4) and Supplement 1. Butterflies of the World. Bauer, E. & Frankenbach, T. eds. Goecke and Evers, Keltern, Germany.
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Nymphalidae.Net provides a detailed taxonomic overview of the Tribe Adoliadini. (Wahlberg, N).
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Savela, M. Euphaedra Hübner, [1819]. Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. Excellent online resource.
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Williams, M.C., (2018). Genus Euphaedra. A section of Afrotropical Butterflies (17th Edition). Publication is available from Lepidopterists' Society of Africa website https://www.lepsocafrica.org/?p=publications&s=atb.
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Zúbrik, M., (2019). Morphological and genetic diversity of two individual forms of Euphaedra eberti (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae). African Invertebrates 60, 195-213.
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