Charaxes (Euxanthe) tiberius tiberius (Grose-Smith, 1889)

Henning 1989: 405 (4 figs, as Euxanthe t. tiberius). Kielland 1990: 277 (1 fig, ‘ atypical ’, as E. t. tiberius). d ’ Abrera 2004: 527 (2 figs, as E. t. tiberius). SI: Figure 19a – d.

Forewing length: male 43 – 53 mm [mean (n = 6) 46.63 mm, SD = 2.806]; female 51 – 60 mm [mean (n = 7) 53.84 mm, SD = 2.150]. van Someren (1975, p. 90) gave male forewing length as 45 – 50 mm, female as 50 – 53 mm.

Records

Kielland (1990, p. 93) gave the distribution of C. tiberius tiberius in Tanzania as lowland forest, up to 1350 m, in eastern and northeastern parts of the country, from south of Ifakara to the Usambaras, with an isolated sighting for Lake Duluti, Arusha, by Arthur Rydon. Cordeiro (1995), who concluded that this butterfly must be very rare in the Kilimanjaro area, cited Smiles ’ (1985) record for Moshi. This appears to be based on a male in BMNH collected by Cooper, 2500 ft, January – February 1938; there is also a Cooper female from West Kilimanjaro, Engare-Nairobi, at 4500 – 5500 ft, collected during the same period. This has smaller forewing postdiscal white spots than the female from Amani illustrated (SI: Figure 19c). In females from Tanzania the pale hindwing ‘ window ’ varies from white to pale yellow, but is apparently never so buff as in C. tiberius meruensis (van Someren, 1936) from Kenya. There is no tiberius material from the Kilimanjaro area in OUMNH. Included here as a member of the lower slopes fauna. Subsp. tiberius extends north into the coastal areas of Kenya. The only other race of C. (E.) tiberius is found in the vicinity of Mt Kenya (Ackery et al. 1995, p. 468).