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.[3] The habitat consists of lowland evergreen forests and riverine forests.

Charaxes lycurgus
From the CAR
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Charaxes
Species:
C. lycurgus
Binomial name
Charaxes lycurgus
Synonyms
  • Papilio lycurgus Fabricius, 1793
  • Papilio laodice Drury, 1782
  • Nymphalis nesiope Hewitson, 1854
Riverine forest at the Congo-Uganda border

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

Subspecies

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  • Charaxes lycurgus lycurgus (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, western Nigeria)
  • Charaxes lycurgus bernardiana Plantrou, 1978 [4](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

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Differs from Charaxes zelica in the deeply concave margin of the forewing, the hindwing blue spots are closer to the margin and the presence of submarginal blue spots on the forewing [5]

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

Clade 1

Clade 2

References

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  1. ^ Fabricius, J.C. 1793. Entomologia Systematica emendata et aucta 3 (1): [vi], 1-488. Hafniae.
  2. ^ "Charaxes Ochsenheimer, 1816" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  3. ^ "Afrotropical Butterflies: File H - Charaxinae - Tribe Charaxini". Archived from the original on 2013-11-09. Retrieved 2012-05-25.
  4. ^ Plantrou, J. 1978 Note sur les Charaxes du groupe ‘porthos-zelica’ et nouvelle revision de la taxonomie du groupe (Lepidoptera Nymphalidae). Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France (N.S.) 14 (3): 515-533.
  5. ^ Kielland, J. 1990 Butterflies of Tanzania. Hill House, Melbourne and London: 1-363.
  • 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. [1] as laodice
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