Charaxes (Charaxes) pollux maua van Someren, 1967

Henning 1989: 116 (4 figs). SI: Figure 25e – h.

Forewing length: male 38 – 44 mm [mean (n = 3) 40.80 mm, SD = 1.967]; female 43 – 48.5 mm [mean (n = 7) 45.80 mm, SD = 1.390]. van Someren (1967, p. 316) gave male forewing length as 39 – 40 mm.

Note: Populations from Mbulu and Mt Kwaraha have the median bands relatively narrow and the basal area darker; specimens from Mt Meru are paler than those from Mt Kilimanjaro (Kielland 1990, p. 108). The type material of C. p. maua is supposedly in the Iain Grahame Collection (Suffolk, UK).

Records

The type locality is ‘ western foothills, Mt Kilimanjaro, Maua ’. Occurs in highland forest on Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Meru, Mt Oldeani, Ngorongoro Crater, Mbulu Forests and Mt Kwaraha, at 1700 – 2400 m (Kielland 1990, p. 108). Cordeiro (1990, p. 34) recorded it from Lake Manyara National Park. This apparently endemic Tanzanian race was encountered by Liseki (2009), who found it at 2000 m in March 2001. OUMNH has two females from the slopes of Kilimanjaro, collected December 1905, ex Rogers. The BMNH has specimens labelled Arusha, Kilimanjaro, West Kilimanjaro Engare-Nairobi 4 – 5000 ft, Moshi 2700 ft., and 6 miles NW of Moshi, while van Someren (1967, p. 316), noting long series obtained, lists ‘ Lyamungu Moshi, Marangu ’ – all of which suggests that this butterfly also occurs at altitudes below 1700 m. Three other named races of C. pollux (Cramer, 1775) occur in Tanzania. The collective species, now with a total of seven recognized subspecies (C. p. mira Ackery, 1995, being a replacement for C. p. mirabilis Turlin, 1989, preoccupied), is widespread across the centre of Africa, in an area delimited by Bioko and Guinea to southern Sudan, and northern Angola to Mozambique (Ackery et al. 1995, p. 455).