Charaxes Saturnus

''Charaxes saturnus'', the foxy charaxes or koppie charaxes, is a butterfly that flies through most of the Savannah of the Eastern and Southern Afrotropical realm, and also occurs in suitable forest habitat locations including the forest belt of west-central Africa.

Description

''Charaxes saturnus'' tat.rev.2005/small> is a medium to large butterfly, with Forewing Length of 40 – 44 mm in the male, and 46 – 50 mm in the female.van Someren (1963), Revisional Notes on African ''Charaxes'' (Lepidoptera:Nymphalidae) Part 1. Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (Ent.) 13,(7), 205 The background colour of all four wings is a very dark blackish brown, with a broad orange postdiscal band traversing both pairs of wings from the leading edge of the forewings almost to the anal margin of the hindwings. The forewing outer margins are orange traversed by black-scaled veins. The hindwing has 6 orange marginal lunules, the lower three are white-edged to completely white. There are typically three or four blue submarginal spots towards the anal angle. The body and the basal area of all four wings is a tawny orange-brown. The underside exhibits a very characteristic mosaic appearance broadly similar to a number of closely-related species, traversed by a jumble of bands, and of reddish, brown, and greyish patches, all edged with a filigree of white. Beyond the inner mosaic, a white complete postdiscal band bridges across fore- to hindwings. The outer orange marginal coloration is present on the underside as narrow white-edged lunules, bounded by a grey submarginal band. The female resembles the male but is larger.
Both sexes of ''Charaxes saturnus'' are similar to females of '' Charaxes achaemenes''.
and '' Charaxes guderiana''.

Hybridisation

Where ''C. saturnus'' is sympatric with ''Charaxes epijasius'' tat.rev.2005/small>, over an extensive zone of overlap, the two species hybridize regularly, producing highly variable transitional specimens(''C. saturnus'' x ''C. epijasius''). The distribution range of hybrid forms extends from Ethiopia to Western Kenya & Northern Tanzania. The variable hybrid forms have historically been named as ''harrisoni'', ''saturnalis'', pl. 4, f. 20-24, pl. 5, f. 25-28; TL= "Kenya, South Kavirondo, Suna" and ''pagenstecheri'' Observation of hybrid forms in Tanzania, as an example, beyond the recognised range of ''C. epijasius'', strongly indicates that the hybrid forms may exist as fertile hybrids, at a lower prevalence than the relatively more stable phenotype of ''C. saturnus''. More detailed phylogenetic research and breeding studies are required to elucidate further the relationships between the two species and their intermediate hybrid phenotypes, and the degree of fertility exhibited amongst their highly variable intermediate forms.

Subspecies

*''C. saturnus saturnus'', Butler, 1866. (TL="Interior of Africa")

In the western areas of its range, it is more variable which has led to some earlier authors to suggest a western subspecies (e.g. Poulton, 1926, TL= N. Angola). Recent detailed re-evaluation found no western locality-depended areas with consistent population phenotypes which could merit infraspecific definition, including in Angola.L. F. Mendes, A. Bivar-de-Sousa, S. Vasconcelos
& C. Van-Dúnem Santos (2017). Description of two new subspecies and notes on
''Charaxes'' Ochsenheimer, 1816 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) of Angola. SHILAP Revta. lepid., 45 (178) 2017: 299-315. See p.303-4 for discussion 312,313 Figs. 7-18 onlin
hosted by Researchgate here
/ref>

The ''Charaxini'' taxa ''harrisoni'', ''saturnalis'', and ''pagenstecheri'' are now thought to be at least partially fertile hybrid variable phenotypes of (''C. saturnus'' x '' C. epijasius''). This would suggest that evolutionary divergence to fully stable species separation between ''C. epijasius'' and ''C. saturnus'' is not complete. Further phylogenetic research is required to clarify the current position further.

Related species

Historical attempts to assemble a cluster of presumably related species into a "''Charaxes jasius'' Group" have not been wholly convincing. More recent taxonomic revision, corroborated by phylogenetic research, allow a more rational grouping congruent with cladistic relationships. Within a well-populated clade of 27 related species sharing a common ancestor approximately 16 mya during the Miocene, 26 are now considered together as The ''jasius'' Group. One of the two lineages forms a robust clade of seven species sharing a common ancestor approximately 2-3 mya, i.e. during the Pliocene

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases