''Tsitana tulbagha'', the Tulbagh sylph, 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

Hesperiidae Skippers are a family of the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) named the Hesperiidae. Being diurnal, they are generally called butterflies. They were previously placed in a separate superfamily, Hesperioidea; however, the most recent taxonomy ...

. It is 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 habitat consists of grassy, rocky areas in

fynbos Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean clim ...

and

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

.Afrotropical Butterflies: Hesperiidae - Subfamily Heteropterinae
/ref> 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 30–40 mm for males and 40–41 mm for females. Adults are on wing from September to December (with a peak from October to November). There is one generation per year. The larvae feed on ''

Pseudopentameris macrantha ''Pseudopentameris'' is a genus of South African plants in the Poaceae, grass family, found only in Western Cape Province. ; SpeciesGermishuizen, G. & Meyer, N.L. (eds.) (2003). Plants of Southern Africa: an annotated checklist. Strelitzia 14.: ...

'', ''

Danthonia ''Danthonia'' is a genus of Eurasian, North African, and American plants in the grass family. Members of this genus are sometimes referred to as oatgrass, but that common name is not restricted to this genus. Other common names include heathgra ...

'' and ''

Merxmuellera ''Merxmuellera'' is a genus of African grasses named for Hermann Merxmueller, a 20th century German botanist and taxonomist who was an expert on African flora. Species ''Merxmuellera'' contains the following species: * '' Merxmuellera ambalavao ...

'' species.

Subspecies

*''Tsitana tulbagha tulbagha'' (from the western Western Cape mountains to the southern Northern Cape) *''Tsitana tulbagha kaplani'' Dickson, 1976 (southern and eastern Western Cape mountains to Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape)

References

Butterflies described in 1937 Heteropterinae {{Hesperiidae-stub