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Acraeini Boisduval 1833

Niklas Wahlberg and Andrew V. Z. Brower
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acraea natalica butterfly
taxon links [up-->]Acraea [up-->]Actinote Monophyly Uncertain[down<--]Heliconiinae Interpreting the tree
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The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.

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Containing group: Heliconiinae

Introduction

Acraeini is a diverse group of unpalatable tropical butterflies. The center of diversity is in Africa, where there are hundreds of species involved in mimicry complexes that make their taxonomy a great challenge. It is not clear based upon the most recent data (Silva-Brandão et al. 2008) that any of the genera as currently circumscribed are monophyletic. The neotropical genera Abananote and Altinote are embedded within Actinote in the current scheme.


References

Silva-Brandão, K. L., N. Wahlberg, R. B. Francini, A. M. L. Azeredo-Espin, K. S. Brown Jr., M. Paluch, D. C. Lees and A. V. L. Freitas. 2008. Phylogenetic relationships of butterflies of the tribe Acraeini (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Heliconiinae) and the evolution of host plant use. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46(2):515-531.

Information on the Internet

Title Illustrations
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
acraea natalica butterfly
Scientific Name Acraea natalica
Location Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Dominique Bernaud
Behavior "Puddling" on lakeshore
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage Adult
Copyright © 2009
Scientific Name Acraea horta
Location South Africa
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Butterfly
Source Collection Flickr
Copyright © 2006 Callie de Wet
Scientific Name Actinote guatemalena
Location Cana Field Station, Darien, Panama
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Guatemalan Lacewing
Source Collection Neotropical Butterflies
Copyright © 2003 Dr. Will Carter
About This Page

Niklas Wahlberg
University of Turku, Finland


Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Niklas Wahlberg at and Andrew V. Z. Brower at

Page: Tree of Life Acraeini Boisduval 1833. Authored by Niklas Wahlberg and Andrew V. Z. Brower. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Wahlberg, Niklas and Andrew V. Z. Brower. 2008. Acraeini Boisduval 1833. Version 19 March 2008 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Acraeini/70203/2008.03.19 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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Acraeini

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