Tirumala petiverana (Doubleday, 1847)

Tirumala petiverana (Doubleday, 1847) View in CoL

Larsen 1996: pl. 27, fig. 386 i. d ’ Abrera 1997: 185 (1 fig.). SI: Figure 3e – h.

Forewing length: male 40.5 – 48.5 mm [mean (n = 11) 44.70 mm, SD = 1.904]; female 44.5 – 51 mm [mean (n = 12) 47.14 mm, SD = 1.583].

Records

Kielland (1990, p. 73, as Danaus petiverana Doubleday and Hewitson ) stated that this butterfly occurs at 400 – 1600 m, noting ‘ Eastern, northern and western Tanzania. From many areas records are lacking. ’ Aurivillius (1910a, p. 2) listed two females (as Danaida limniace var. petiverana ) from ‘ Kilimandjaro: Kake ’, collected in June. It has been suggested to us that ‘ Kake ’ is a misprint for the well-known Kahe, a populated area southeast of Moshi and north of Nyumba ya Mungu dam. Consistent with this, the BMNH has a male from Moshi collected at 2500 ft by Cooper, and a female from New Moshi collected by Selous. OUMNH has two males from Taveta, c. 2500 ft, collected by Wiggins. On this basis, we include this species as a member of the lower slopes fauna. No subspecies of T. petiverana are currently recognized. This butterfly, which occurs throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa ( Ackery et al. 1995, p. 270), as long believed, is closely related to the widespread Oriental species Tirumala limniace (Cramer, 1775) ( Hashimoto et al. 2012) .