''Acleros mackenii'', the Macken's skipper or Macken's dart, is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprise ...

of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in Western, Eastern and Southern Africa. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

is 27–32 mm for males and 29–33 mm for females. Adults are on wing year-round but are more common in late summer, autumn and winter than in the hotter midsummer months. The larvae feed on '' Rhus'' species (including '' Rhus corarius'') and '' Acridocarpus'' species (including '' Acridocarpus smeathmanni'').

Subspecies

*''Acleros mackenii mackenii'' (possibly Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, South Africa: Limpopo Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape Province) *''Acleros mackenii olaus'' (Plötz, 1884) (Guinea, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic Congo, southern Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi) *''Acleros mackenii instabilis'' Mabille, 1890 (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia) Macken's skipper (Acleros mackenii olaus).jpg, ''A. m. olaus''

References

* * Butterflies described in 1868 Erionotini Butterflies of Africa Taxa named by Roland Trimen {{Erionotini-stub