''Thestor protumnus'', the Boland skolly, 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 ...

. It is only found in

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

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 22–37.5 mm for males and 24–42.5 mm for females. Adults are on wing from September to December and August to October in

Namaqualand Namaqualand (khoekhoe: "Nama-kwa" meaning Nama Khoe people's land) is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over and covering a total area of . It is divided by the lower course of the Orange River into ...

. Subspecies ''terblanchei'' is on wing from January to March. The peak flight times vary per locality. The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e feed on

coccid Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than the ...

s (scale insects).

Subspecies

*''Thestor protumnus protumnus'' – Cape Peninsula, south-western Cape *''Thestor protumnus aridus'' van Son, 1941 – Cape, Free State *''Thestor protumnus terblanchei'' Henning & Henning, 1993 – Free State left, 240px, ''T. p.'' subsp. ''aridus'', the desert Boland skolly

References

Butterflies described in 1764 Thestor Endemic butterflies of South Africa Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Miletinae-stub