''Rohaniella pygmaea'', the pigmy emperor, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the family Saturniidae. It is found in Africa, including

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The species was first described by Peter Maassen and

Gustav Weymer Gustav Weymer (1833–1914) was a German entomologist. He described many new taxa of butterflies from specimens collected by Alphons Stübel in South America. His own collections and those he worked on are conserved in Museum für Naturkund ...

in 1885. The larvae feed on ''

Burkea africana ''Burkea africana'', the wild syringa ( bm, siri), is a deciduous, medium-sized, spreading, flat-topped tree belonging to the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the family Fabaceae. The genus was named in honour of Joseph Burke, the botanist and col ...

''. The larvae are consumed and are considered a delicacy.

References

External links

"''Rohaniella pygmaea'' (Maassen, 1885)"
''African Moths''. Saturniinae Moths of Africa Moths described in 1885 {{Saturniidae-stub