Charaxes xiphares
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%
Charaxes xiphares, the forest king emperor or forest king charaxes, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is native to Afromontane forest in the eastern and southern Afrotropical realm. The wingspan is 65–80 mm for males and 70–95 mm for females. Ch. xiphares Cr. male: the forewing marked almost exactly as in nandina, but the spots blue with the exception of the first two in the distal row; the basal part is tinged with blue, but usually not so distinctly as in the figure. The blue median band of the hindwing is placed further distad, is broader and distally deeply incised at the veins or even almost broken up into spots; small blue submarginal dots and blue or yellowish marginal spots. The female is very different from the male; the forewing is brown-black without blue markings, but with four white discal spots (in the middle of cellule 2, before the middle of 3 and at the base of 4 and 5) and 2 or more white spots behind the middle; small yellowish marginal spots in cellules lb and 2. The hindwing above in the middle between veins 2 and 7 with a very broad (about 15 mm.) ochre-yellow transverse band, distally irrorated with dark, which covers the basal half... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Forest-King Charaxes sighting in Garden Route National Park on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 261st most-seen of the 298 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February and March
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Forest-King Charaxes in Garden Route National Park on a given day, against under 5% in April to January, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Forest-King Charaxes sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Garden Route National Park, in our data
Garden Route National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Forest-King Charaxes sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Charaxes
The closest relatives of the Forest-King Charaxes that you can see in Garden Route National Park (genus Charaxes, Emperor Butterflies) are White Pearl Emperor (about 10%) and White-Barred Emperor (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Forest-King Charaxes is recorded against all the insects logged in Garden Route National Park (5 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
