Deudorix galathea

Deudorix (Virachola) galathea Swainson
Thecla galathea Swainson, 1821 [1821-1822]: pi. 69. Deudorix galathea: Aurivillius,
1921 [1908-1925]: 373. Deudorix (Virachola) galathea: Stempffer and Bennett, 1956: 510. Stempffer, 1957a: 115. ? Deudorix (Virachola) odana H. H. Druce: Stempffer, 1957a: 115 (in part?).
Stempffer and Bennett (1956) record galathea from Sierra Leone to Cameroon. Since there are no specimens in the Carnegie Museum collection from southern Cameroon, it is possible that the species reaches its eastern limit in the northern and western part of the country, adjacent to Nigeria, thus limiting it effectively to Occidental Africa.
It is strange that there are no females reported especially since Swainson mentioned that both sexes were represented in Haworth's collection, from which he described it. The series at hand is very variable as regards the development of the terminal orange border of the hindwing above, ranging from a thick band through a thin band to complete absence. The last part to disappear is the segment in Cui-Cu2, always slightly larger than the rest.
D. odana H. H. Druce differs (in the male) from galathea most obviously in the absence of the terminal orange border of the hindwing above, less strikingly in a somewhat different shade of upper side discal color and a paler, less coppery scent pad on the hindwing above. On the under side they are virtually identical. Both odana and galathea are unusually susceptible to greasing, and such greasing quite effectively masks the two less obvious discriminating characters, so that a slightly greasy galathea lacking the terminal orange border could easily pass for odana. I suspect that such a specimen may have been the basis for Stempffer's record (1957a) of odana from Sierra Leone. The species is otherwise known only from Nigeria, Cameroon and the Congo.
Liberia: Kpain, II, III; Wanau, IV (Stempffer and Bennett, 1956); Harbel, 6 8 , I, 3 8 , II, 4 8 , III, 5 8 , IV, 12 8 , V, 1 8 , IX, 1 8 , X, 1 8 , XII; Zorzor, 4 8 , XI (all Fox).

Deudorix galathea, the red-edged playboy, is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found in Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria (south and the Cross River loop), Cameroon and Gabon.