Acleros mackenii

Acleros mackenii
	A. m. instabilis; Kakamega Forest, Kenya
	maleA. m. olaus; Aburi Botanical Gardens, Ghana
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Clade:	Pancrustacea
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Hesperiidae
Genus:	Acleros
Species:	A. mackenii
Binomial name
	Acleros mackenii; (Trimen, 1868)
Synonyms
	Pamphila mackenii Trimen, 1868; Acleros nyassicola Strand, 1921; Acleros mackenii f. denia Evans, 1937; Apaustus olaus Plötz, 1884; Acleros instabilis Mabille, 1890;

Acleros mackenii, the Macken's skipper or Macken's dart, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in Western, Eastern and Southern Africa.

The wingspan is 27–32 mm for males and 29–33 mm for females. Adults are on wing year-round but are more common in late summer, autumn and winter than in the hotter midsummer months.^[2]

The larvae feed on Rhus species (including Rhus corarius) and Acridocarpus species (including Acridocarpus smeathmanni).

Subspecies

Acleros mackenii mackenii (possibly Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, South Africa: Limpopo Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape Province)
Acleros mackenii olaus (Plötz, 1884) (Guinea, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso,^[3] Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic Congo, southern Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi)
Acleros mackenii instabilis Mabille, 1890 (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia)

male A. m. olaus

References

↑ Acleros at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
↑ Woodhall, Steve (2005). Field Guide to Butterflies of South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik. ISBN 978-1-86872-724-7.
↑ Tom Jamonneau, Abubakar S Ringim, Michel Libert, Andrea C Reyes Camargo, Alain Coache, Jérémy Bouyer, Annotated checklist of the butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Burkina Faso, West Africa—synthesis and new occurrences, Journal of Insect Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, May 2026, ieag018, https://doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieag018

Media related to Acleros mackenii at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Acleros mackenii at Wikispecies

[1] Acleros at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms

[2] Woodhall, Steve (2005). Field Guide to Butterflies of South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: Struik. ISBN 978-1-86872-724-7.

[3] Tom Jamonneau, Abubakar S Ringim, Michel Libert, Andrea C Reyes Camargo, Alain Coache, Jérémy Bouyer, Annotated checklist of the butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of Burkina Faso, West Africa—synthesis and new occurrences, Journal of Insect Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, May 2026, ieag018, https://doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieag018

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