''Acraea ventura'' 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 ...

in the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species have a red ...

. It is found in

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

, Rwanda, Burundi and

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

Description

''ventura'' Hew. (= ''bukoba'' Weym.) (55 a) is very similar above to a typical ''

Acraea serena ''Acraea serena'', the dancing acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found throughout Africa south of the Sahara. It is the most common of the ''Acraea'', from Dakar to Fort-Dauphin and from Yemen to the Cape. This is the type ...

'' or ''serena'' form ''rougeti'' and has usually a free subapical band on the forewing, with the spots in 4 and 5 much prolonged distally; beneath the forewing has at the distal margin sharply prominent black veins and saffron-yellow streaks on the interneural folds; it is characterized by the under surface of the hindwing; this has thick, sharply defined, bright red streaks in the cell and in cellules 1 c and 7 between the basal and the discal dots and occasionally similar streaks in other cellules also; the yellow marginal spots are very large and proximally produced into red streaks, which are much longer in cellules 1 c to 3 than in cellules 4 and 5; the proximal ends of the red streaks are connected by a dark line which bounds the light median band distally; thus the median band is not of almost uniform breadth, but in cellules 4 and 5 strongly convex towards the base. In the female the ground-colour of the upper surface is grey-yellow and the red streaks in the marginal band of the hindwing beneath are often absent. Southern Congo; Nyassaland; German and British East Africa; Uganda. - ''ochrascens'' E. Sharpe nearly agrees with ''ventura'' in markings, but has the ground-colour of both wings light yellowish white, and the subapical band of the forewing united with the ground-colour. Victoria Nyanza: Buka Bay.

Biology

The habitat consists of marshy areas. The larvae feed on '' Cassia'' species.

Subspecies

*''Acraea ventura ventura'' (Malawi, southern Tanzania, northern Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo: Shaba, Angola) *''Acraea ventura ochrascens'' Sharpe, 1902 (Democratic Republic of the Congo: Kivu, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, western Kenya, north-western Tanzania)

Taxonomy

''Acraea ventura'' is a member of the ''Acraea bonasia''

species group In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

; see '' Acraea''.See also Pierre & Bernaud, 2014 Pierre & Bernau, 2014 Classification et Liste Synonymique des Taxons du Genre ''Acraea'
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References

External links

Images representing ''Acraea ventura''
at Bold.
''Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde'' 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 56
''a'' Butterflies described in 1877 ventura Butterflies of Africa Taxa named by William Chapman Hewitson {{Heliconiinae-stub