Colotis evenina casta (Gerstaecker, 1871)

Liseki, Steven D. & Vane-Wright, Richard I., 2014, Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Mount Kilimanjaro: family Pieridae, subfamily Pierinae, Journal of Natural History 48 (25 - 26), pp. 1543-1583 : 1552

Colotis evenina casta (Gerstaecker, 1871)

d’ Abrera 1997: 83 (2 figs). SI: Figure 10a–f.

Forewing length: male 18.5–24.5 mm (mean (n = 5) 22.18 mm, SD = 2.063); female 18.0–25.0 mm (mean (n = 12) 21.52 mm, SD = 2.263).

Records. Common in woodland and bush from the lowlands to about 2000 m, from coastal areas inland to Iringa, Morogoro, and the Ukaguru and Nguru Mts ( Kielland 1990, p.57, as C. e. sipylus (Swinhoe, 1884)). Included here as a member of the lower slope fauna based on several specimens in BMNH from the northern and eastern slopes, and Taveta (from where it was recorded by Rogers 1913, p.99). There are two specimens from Taveta in the OUMNH. Colotis e. casta is an East African butterfly, extending northwards through Kenya to Ethiopia and Somalia, and southwards as far as Mozambique. Two other races of C. evenina are recognized, one in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, the other in northwestern and central Tanzania, southwestern Kenya and southern Uganda ( Ackery et al. 1995).

Females vary in ground colour, from white to yellowish, and in some cases with orange forewing tip more or less obsolete (f. “ledouxi” Talbot).

GROUP V