''Acraea trimeni'' or Trimen's acraea is a

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

of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in only in the arid savannah in the northern

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

and the western part of the Free State. 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 of ...

is 43–49 mm for males and 45–55 mm for females. Adults are usually on wing from October to March with a peak in late October. There might be two or continuous generations per year.

Taxonomy

The status of this species is uncertain. ''Acraea trimeni'' was described as a form or aberration of ''

Acraea barberi ''Acraea barberi'', or Barber's acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in South Africa only in hilly wooded savannah in Gauteng, Limpopo and North West. The wingspan is 55–66 mm for males and 60–72 mm for fem ...

''. Aurivillius (1898) is uncertain as to whether ''trimeni'' is an aberration or variety of ''barberi'' Trimen. Eltringham (1912) retains the rank of aberration of ''barberi'' Trimen. Van Son (1963) considers ''trimeni'' as a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

of ''

zetes The Boreads ( grc, Βορεάδαι, Boreádai) are the "wind brothers" in Greek mythology. They consist of Zetes (also Zethes) ( grc, Ζήτης) and Calaïs ( grc, Κάλαϊς). Their place of origin was Thrace, home of their father Boreas (No ...

''. In his phylogenetic analysis of 1992–1993, Henning considers the Aurivillius description as a good species, but ''trimeni'' may be a synonym of ''barberi''. Eltringham's text reads "In the example named ab. ''trimeni'' by Aurivillius the apical yellow is more pronounced, and the forewing hind marginal black is almost absent. Aurivillius includes under this an example from Rehoboth ( German W. Africa) which is now in the Staudinger collection. If this is really ''barberi'' then the '' hypoleuca'' of Trimen must also be a form of ''zetes'' which indeed is highly probable. Extremely different in appearance though it is. I have in fact only kept ''hypoleuca'' separate from ''zetes'' because it is so far a unique example and bears no locality. The example labelled ''barberi'' in the Staudinger collection differs very little from it. (See remarks under ''A. hypoleuca'')".

Taxonomy

It is a member of the '' Acraea zetes '' species group - but see also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014 Pierre & Bernau, 2014 Classification et Liste Synonymique des Taxons du Genre ''Acraea'
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Etymology

The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours

Roland Trimen Roland Trimen Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (29 October 1840 in London – 25 July 1916 in London) was a British-South African Natural history, naturalist, best known for ''South African Butterflies'' (1887–89), a collaborative work wi ...

References

IUCN Red List least concern species trimeni Butterflies described in 1899 Endemic butterflies of South Africa Taxa named by Per Olof Christopher Aurivillius {{Heliconiinae-stub