Chrysoritis beulah (Quickelberge 1966).

Poecilmitis beulah Quickelberge 1966: 4.

Type locality: Nr. Steytlerville, Eastern Cape Province.

MPT: low to medium elevation gullies. Host ant: Crem. castanea (unconfirmed); host plant: no data.

Taxonomy: Polyphyletic in the COI tree due to a specimen (C374) from Smithskraal 20 km NE of Willowmore occurring in thysbe mt Clade 3. This locality was discovered by D. A. Edge (pers. comm.) and specimens from there were identified as C. beulah, having indistinguishable facies from type locality specimens. In the CAD tree the two C. beulah samples (representing both COI lineages) are identical. However, their haplotype is also shared with a C. violescens sample; these three samples form a weakly supported clade with 56% bootstrap support. COI-polyphyly could be a consequence of historical introgression involving a now extinct donor taxon but the available data are insufficient to identify the original vs. the “captured” mtDNA lineage. With support suggested by the CAD data, the Smithskraal specimen is treated as C. beulah here. As the two COI lineages are separated both phylogenetically and geographically (unlike other polyphyletic taxa such as C. aridimontis, C. trimeni and C. perseus where both COI lineages co-mingle) and support from nuclear data is not definitive, further investigation is needed.

Conservation status: LC.