Telchinia serena
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
Acraea serena, the dancing acraea, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found throughout Africa south of the Sahara. It is the most common of the Acraea, from Dakar to Fort-Dauphin and from Yemen to the Cape. This is the type species of the old genus Telchinia, which may warrant re-separation from Acraea. Formerly, A. serena was often misidentified as Acraea eponina (small orange acraea) or Acraea terpsicore (tawny coaster).
It is very likely that the butterfly's black-spotted orange markings are a sign of unpalatability and it may well form part of a mimicry ring with Erikssonia edgei. Acraea manjaca from Madagascar, now considered to be conspecific with Acraea serena, has a complex taxonomic history which illustrates the problems in interpreting the genus as a whole. Here is an account of how Acraea manjaca was placed by different authors.
Boisduval notes the proximity with eponina Cramer in his original description of 1833. Aurivillius (1898) considers... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gonarezhou National Park | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 2 | iSimangaliso Wetland Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Gorongosa National Park | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 4 | South Luangwa National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia | |
| 5 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 6 | uMkhuze Game Reserve | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 7 | Hwange National Park | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 8 | Odzala-Kokoua National Park | 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo | |
| 9 | Pilanesberg National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 10 | Nairobi National Park | 🇰🇪 Kenya | |
| 11 | Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 12 | Chobe National Park | 🇧🇼 Botswana |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maputo | 🇲🇿 Mozambique | |
| 2 | Accra | 🇬🇭 Ghana | |
| 3 | Cotonou | 🇧🇯 Benin | |
| 4 | Serrekunda | 🇬🇲 Gambia | |
| 5 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 6 | Pretoria | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 7 | Dar es-Salaam | 🇹🇿 Tanzania | |
| 8 | Antananarivo | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 9 | Kampala | 🇺🇬 Uganda | |
| 10 | Harare | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Dancing Amber sighting in iSimangaliso Wetland Park on a given day, based on 144 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 8th most-seen of the 316 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May and June
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Dancing Amber in iSimangaliso Wetland Park on a given day, against under 5% in February and November, the lowest months. Those are among iSimangaliso Wetland Park's driest months, with about 45 mm of rain a month against 130 mm in February.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Dancing Amber sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
2nd of 12
Of the 12 parks where we can rate Dancing Amber sightings, iSimangaliso Wetland Park ranks 2nd at about 30%. The best odds are in Gonarezhou National Park (Zimbabwe, about 40%).
Same genus: Acraea
The closest relatives of the Dancing Amber that you can see in iSimangaliso Wetland Park (genus Acraea, Acraeas) are Wanderer (about 10%), Whitebar Acraea (about 10%) and Dusky Acraea (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Dancing Amber is recorded against all the insects logged in iSimangaliso Wetland Park (144 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.
