Euphaedra sp. Bas-Uele, DRC

[cabintom]

Belongs to the Euphaedrana sub-genus... If you know what it is, please tell me!

[mcheki]

Very interesting.
No definite answer but a quick check through raised E laguerrei, E inanum and E eberti hamus as possibilities. However the first two are West African so a bit unlikely. Yours seems different to all these, but no match found, so further thought will be given over the next day or so.

[cabintom]

mcheki Did you have a moment to give this further thought? It seems like one of the eberti forms Hecq illustrates... but I'm uncertain what the "defining" feature is for that species.

[valleysboyo]

Hi Tom,

I would agree with you - E. eberti eberti F, the underside of your specimen is particularly plain - they can have bolder markings.

Re: the "defining" feature is for that species - like many of the Euphaedra, not really a single feature, but more a combination of features - have you seen the 2019 paper by Milan Zubrik et al - available free on the web - an extremely interesting and useful paper - available at www.researchgate.net/publication/335870266_Morphological_and_genetic_diversity_of_two_individual_forms_of_Euphaedra_eberti_Lepidoptera_Nymphalidae

To me, the underside of your specimen is closest to 5 and 6 on Fig 2 in that paper.

What do you reckon?

[cabintom]

valleysboyo Thank you! I had not seen that paper, which, as you say, is extremely interesting! Given how confused the taxonomy of Euphaedra is, it makes me wonder how many other species might be polymorphic like eberti.
Anyways, it's clear to me the specimen in question is E. eberti eberti.

[mcheki]

A quick question in response to the above discussion. The article you bring our attention to relates entirely to specimens collected in Central African Republic. The specimen cabintom is requesting information on was collected in the Kivu area of east DRC. As far as I am aware subspecies eberti of Euphaedra eberti is found in CAR and north DRC and subspecies hamus is found in east DRC and west Uganda near the Ruwenzori Mountains. The list of butterflies of all species found in DRC produced by Robert Ducarme in 2018 lists E eberti hamus. Surely collecting location must also be taken into account. While appreciating the variability within this species as outlined in the paper do we accept the two subspecies or not? Can subspecies hamus not be as variable as the nominate? In which case we have a specimen of E eberti hamus.

[cabintom]

mcheki The specimen in question was caught in Bas-Uele, about 100km from the border with C.A.R.
It's not my usual stomping grounds.

[mcheki]

Apologies. My mistake, an incorrect assumption. I understand now.