Charaxes lycurgus

Charaxes lycurgus, the Laodice untailed charaxes, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. It is found in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.[2] The habitat consists of lowland evergreen forests and riverine forests.

Riverine forest at the Congo-Uganda border

Charaxes lycurgus
From the CAR
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Charaxes
Species:
C. lycurgus
Binomial name
Charaxes lycurgus
(Fabricius, 1793)[1]
Synonyms
  • Papilio lycurgus Fabricius, 1793
  • Papilio laodice Drury, 1782
  • Nymphalis nesiope Hewitson, 1854

Adult males feed on otter and bird droppings and both sexes are attracted to fermented fruit.

The larvae feed on Pterocarpus santalinoides, Paullinia pinnata, Albizia zygia, Lonchocarpus cyanescens, Dalbergia, Millettia, Dichapetalum and Trachyphrynium species.

Subspecies
  • Charaxes lycurgus lycurgus (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, western Nigeria)
  • Charaxes lycurgus bernardiana Plantrou, 1978 (northern and eastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Bioko, Congo, Central African Republic, northern Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Sudan, western Uganda, Tanzania: eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika)

Taxonomy

Charaxes lycurgus is a member of the species group Charaxes lycurgus. The supposed clade members are:

Clade 1

Clade 2

References
  1. "Charaxes Ochsenheimer, 1816" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  2. Afrotropical Butterflies: File H - Charaxinae - Tribe Charaxini
  • Victor Gurney Logan Van Someren, 1974 Revisional notes on African Charaxes (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Part IX. Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History (Entomology) 29 (8):415-487. as laodice


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