- Source: Eurytela dryope
Eurytela dryope, the golden piper, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae, found in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Madagascar.
Description
Wingspan: 40–50 mm in males and 45–55 mm in females. The male and female are very similar in appearance. The upperside of the wings is dark brown with a wide, yellow-orange band in the lower two-thirds of the forewing margin and the outer half of the hindwing. The underside of the wings is variegated in shades of brown.
Subspecies
Listed alphabetically:
E. d. angulata Aurivillius, 1898 – eastern and southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Eswatini, South Africa: Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape
E. d. brittoni Gabriel, 1954 – south-western Saudi Arabia, Yemen
E. d. dryope (Cramer, [1775]) – Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, southern Nigeria, Cameroon, central and northern Democratic Republic of the Congo
E. d. lineata Aurivillius, 1898 – Madagascar, Comoros
Distribution
E. d. angulata is found in Ethiopia, East Africa, southern DRC, Angola and on the eastern side of South Africa from Limpopo, the Magaliesberg, Mpumalanga, Eswatini, KwaZulu-Natal, to Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape. A photographic record was made further south than Port St Johns during the South African Butterfly Conservation Assessment. E. d. brittoni is found in the south-west of the Arabian Peninsula. E. d. dryope from Sierra Leone to Cameroon and northern DRC. E. d. lineata is found in Madagascar.
Life cycle
= Eggs
=The eggs are covered in longitudinal rows of hairy spines.
= Larvae
=The larvae are spiny with large head processes and feed on Tragia glabrata, Dalechampia capensis, and Ricinus communis.
= Pupae
=The pupae are greenish in colour and have greatly expanded wing cases.
= Adults
=The flight period is year round, peaking between November and June. They have a leisurely, gliding flight, settling frequently, usually with open wings. The adults feed on fermenting fruit, tree sap and nectar. They are found in forests and wooded, frost-free savanna. This species can tolerate drier conditions than the pied piper (Eurytela hiarbas).