About the Blue-Spotted Charaxes
Charaxes cithaeron, the blue-spotted emperor or blue-spotted charaxes, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in south-east Africa. The wingspan is 70–80 mm in males and 85–95 mm in females. Ch. cithaeron Fldr. male: forewing above black with two transverse rows of blue spots; the proximal row in the middle, composed of 6 spots (2 in cellule lb and one each in 2-5), the distal consists of 8 spots, of which the first, in 6 and 7, are white; an elongate blue spot in la beyond the middle. Hindwing above beyond the middle with a broad transverse band, posteriorly whitish and anteriorly blue, blue submarginal spots and whitish marginal streaks. The basal part of the under surface with irregularly arranged, black, white-edged transverse streaks. The female has on the upperside a broad, curved white transverse band, proximally sharply defined, on the forewing and a bluish white transverse band on the hindwing and is hence very similar above to the female of violetta East Africa from Natal to Kenia in British East Africa.
A full description is also given by Walter Rothschild and Karl Jordan (1900). Novitates Zoologicae Volume 7:287-524. [1] page 379... Wikipedia →