''Erikssonia cooksoni'', the Cookson's copper, 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

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfl ...

. The species was first described by

Hamilton Herbert Druce Hamilton Herbert Charles James Druce (1869 – 21 June 1922) was an English entomologist who specialised in Lycaenidae and to a lesser extent Hesperiidae. He is not to be confused with his father, the English entomologist Herbert Druce (1846– ...

in 1905. It is found in 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 ...

( Lualaba) and north-western

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

. It is found in sparse

miombo woodland The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located primarily in Central Africa. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) characterized b ...

with low herbs. Adults are on wing in September and January. It looks very much like a slow-flying ''

Acraea Acraea (Ancient Greek: means 'of the heights' from ''akraios'') was a name that had several uses in Greek and Roman mythology. *Acraea, the naiad daughter of the river-god Asterion near Mycenae, who together with her sisters Euboea and Prosymn ...

'', of which it is very likely a Müllerian mimic. Males have a slow, fluttering flight (so mainly the upperside orange is seen) and after a short time settle on twigs, dead grass stems and occasionally elevated ground. They have definite territories and fight off other males that come within the territory: it is only during this fighting that their flight is rapid. They can fly fast if alarmed. Females have a slow, fluttering flight. They flutter through the bush looking for suitable plants on which to oviposit, and if they encounter other flowering herbs, they will stop and feed. The females stop often and sit on dead twigs of herbs. Once the females have located the food plant, they crawl up and down the plant ovipositing on the leaves, stems and dead twigs. The larvae feed on ''

Gnidia involucrata ''Gnidia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Thymelaeaceae. It is distributed in Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, India, and Sri Lanka; more than half of all the species are endemic to South Africa.Rogers, Z. S. (2006)A new species of Malag ...

''.

External links

Taxonomy, Biology, Biogeography, Evolution and Conservation of the Genus ''Erikssonia'' Trimen (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)
Butterflies described in 1905 Erikssonia (butterfly) {{Aphnaeini-stub