Butterflies of
Africa
Ward's Glorious Acraea
Acraea pharsalus
WARD, 1871
Family - NYMPHALIDAE
subfamily -
HELICONIINAE
Tribe - ACRAEINI
Acraea
pharsalus, Bobiri forest, Ghana
Introduction
There
are about 220 species in the genus Acraea, all
Afrotropical in distribution, with the exception of 3 species (
violae and issoria
from the Oriental region, and andromacha from Australia
& Papua New Guinea ). The vast majority of species are found in the forests and
savannahs of East Africa, while about 60 are found in West Africa.
All
Acraea species have elongate forewings and rounded hindwings. The wings
are thinly scaled and in many species are semi-transparent.
The scales wear off very easily so that insects more than 4 or 5
days old have a glassy or greasy appearance. The majority of species
have a predominantly brownish or greyish ground colour, marked with
bands or patches of red or orange. The basal area of the underside hindwings of most
species is marked with a pattern of small black spots. In many, including
pharsalus, these spots also appear on the upper
surface of the wings.
Acraea
pharsalus is distributed from Guinea and Sierra Leone to southern Sudan
and Ethiopia, and south to Angola, Zambia and Mozambique.
Habitats
This
large and magnificent species
can be found in a wide range of habitats including rainforest, secondary forest,
savannah / woodland mosaics, riparian forest, sub-montane forest,
Acacia thorn scrub
and coastal grasslands, at altitudes between sea level and about 1500m.
Lifecycle
The larvae are polyphagous. Recorded
foodplants include Ficus ( Moraceae ),
Boehmeria,
Fleurya
( Urticaceae ),
Tectona ( Verbenaceae ), and
Theobroma, ( Sterculiaceae ).
Adult behaviour
In lowland areas the butterflies spend much of their time high in the
tree tops, where courtship and copulation takes place. In hilly or
mountainous terrain they fly to hilltops instead.
Males often descend from the trees to
imbibe from damp ground
or the edges of puddles, along logging roads in the lowlands, and
will visit carnivore dung in sub-montane areas, e.g. in Ethiopia.
Acraea
pharsalus, Bobiri forest, Ghana
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